Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o' Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NEW WRIT

For the Borough of Merthyr Tydfil (Aberdare Division), in the room of the Right Honourable George Henry Hall, now Viscount Hall, called up to the House of Peers.—[Mr. William Whiteley.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Old Age Pensions

Mr. A. Edward Davies: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he is aware that many old age pensioners have not yet received their new pensions; what is the cause of the delay; and what steps are being taken to overcome the arrears.

Mr. David Renton: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he is aware of the delay in distributing the new books for obtaining the increased old age pensions; and whether he will state the date by which distribution of the new books will be completed.

Mr. Wyatt: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he is aware that there is considerable delay in dealing with claims for increased old age pensions addressed to his Department at Blackpool; and what steps he is taking to expedite the settlement of these claims.

Mr. George Jeger: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he is aware that many old age pensioners in the Winchester-Southampton district have not yet received their new pension books; and if he will make a statement explaining the

delay and the action being taken to remedy it.

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of National Insurance what action he is taking to complete the issue of new pension books and to give financial help to pensioners who have not received their new books.

Mr. George Wallace: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he is aware that there are a large number of old age pensioners still awaiting receipt of their new pension books, giving them the new increased old age pension; and whether steps are being taken to expedite dispatch of these books.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): The issue of order books at increased rates to over three million pensioners was substantially completed by the first week in October, on the basis of the information then available in my Department. This work involved the review in three central offices over a period of less than two months of the position of nearly four million pensioners. The subsequent complaints relate to a small percentage of cases over all, and fall into two broad categories. First, there are pensioners who hold books for pensions at lower rates than those to which they now think they are entitled because, for instance, they have retired, or their circumstances have otherwise changed at a recent date.
Second, there are those who have not received the books to which they are entitled owing, for instance, to loss in post, misdirection, or recent change of address—a very important factor.
Pensioners in the first category are virtually claiming new pensions. These claims require investigation, which may take some time, and the pensioners are being so informed. In order to speed up the handling of both classes of case, however, I have recently made arrangements with the Assistance Board which should enable a large majority of the difficulties to be dealt with by personal contact between the old people and the local offices of the board acting as my agents. Accordingly, any old age pensioner who is in difficulty in the matter would be well advised to communicate with the local representative of the Assistance Board.
Both the officers of my Department and the Board, in cooperation with the Post Office, are working long hours of extra


duty, and additional staff have been put on to the work of clearance to the maximum extent. Substantial progress has already been made, and I have every confidence that the arrangements now made will lead to a speedy clearance of outstanding cases.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: Will the Minister consider the issue of a short explanatory statement that could be sent to applicants who are in great distress, instead of the ordinary postcard with which they have to be content for a few weeks, and which they cannot really understand?

Mr. Griffiths: I will certainly consider that.

Mr. Renton: Would the right hon. Gentleman answer the second part of Question 3, and say when this work will be completed?

Mr. Griffiths: We hope, very quickly; but the hon. Gentleman will realise that, of course, some of these cases raise questions of retirement, and they also raise questions of earnings, which fall to be considered and decided by the local tribunal, and, finally, by the umpire. But the large mass of cases will be completed in the very near future.

Mr. Thomas Brown: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when pensioners write to his office at Blackpool, or to his own office, they cannot get a reply for six or eight weeks, and that it is very important that they should have acknowledgment of their letters, so that their minds may be set at rest by their being assured that their cases are being attended to?

Mr. Griffiths: I have to answer a Question on that matter in a moment.

Mr. Chetwynd: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Assistance Board are empowered to make up the difference between the old and new rates of pension before the new books are issued?

Mr. Griffiths: No, Sir. The Assistance Board, at my request, have promised to collaborate, because we find that personal contact saves a good deal of time and clears up cases more quickly; but the Assistance Board are not entitled to make awards of the higher pension.

Sir Waldron Smithers: Does not the right hon. Gentleman's statement prove that administration breaks down under State control?

Mr. McAdam: is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the fact that, despite repeated applications, there are 46 wives of insured pensioners in the Broughton postal district of the City of Salford who have not yet received their pensions?

Mr. Griffiths: I am not aware of that, but I will have immediate inquiries made.

Elderly Spinsters

Mr. Perrins: asked the Minister of National Insurance the number of single women between the ages of 55 and 60 years who are insured under the National Insurance Scheme.

Mr. J. Griffiths: It is estimated that the number of single women between the ages of 55 and 60 years, who are at present insured under the Contributory Pensions Acts is about 180,000. This figure includes about 30,000 special voluntary contributors who took up insurance under the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Pensions (Voluntary Contributors) Act, 1937.

Mr. Perrins: In view of the fact that this figure reveals that this class of insured contributor is relatively small, having regard to the total number of contributors, will my right hon Friend consider granting the claims of the spinsters for a retiring pension at the age of 55?

Mr. Griffiths: That is another question.

Superannuation Schemes

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of National Insurance if, in view of the fact that the new Act does not affect existing superannuation schemes in any way, public and private employers will now be required to pay an additional contribution for each employee who is a member of an existing superannuation scheme.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Contributions at the standard rates will be payable in respect of employees whether or not they are contributors to existing superannuation schemes of either private or public employers, and pensions at the standard rates will in due course become payable to them under the national scheme. The parties to these superannuation schemes


may, however, wish to review their provisions and Section 69 (4) of the National Insurance Act, 1946, facilitate the making of any desired modification.

Mr. Rankin: How does the Minister reconcile the fact that certain people will be drawing two pensions from the State with the principle already embodied in the Bill that certain other people are not entitled to draw two payments from the State?

Mr. Griffiths: Under our scheme persons will pay for the pensions to which they will be entitled. If in addition they pay for any other pension, then they will be entitled to that pension too.

Mr. Wyatt: Does my right hon. Friend intend to take any action to prevent private employers from insisting on a double contribution, one to the superannuation scheme they themselves run and one to the State?

Mr. Griffiths: I am afraid I have no power to interfere, and moreover I do not think it would be wise for me to interfere, in any private superannuation schemes.

Office Accommodation

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he is now in a position to give detailed information about the total floor space necessary for the office accommodation required for the administration of his Department; and the cost.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No, Sir.

Sir W. Smithers: Whatever the floor space may be, does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that this floor space and the bureaucrats who will occupy it are unproductive, that they are drones in the hive and that they will destroy, not create, jobs?

Mr. Griffiths: I do not think this scheme is unproductive. I hope it will produce a retiring pension for the hon. Gentleman very shortly.

Dermatitis

Mr. David Griffiths: asked the Minister of National Insurance the number of cases certified by the certifying surgeons of coal-miners suffering from dermatitis from January, 1938, yearly, up to and includ-

ing December, 1945; and is he aware of the increases in certified dermatitis.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As the reply contains a number of figures I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. D. Griffiths: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to set up a committee of investigation into this matter to deal with the grave injustice caused by the fact that, between the day of certification of a miner suffering from this disease and the day of attending the court of referees, very often all symptoms have disappeared?

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am afraid I should have to have notice of that question. I regret that these figures show a steady increase; there are a large number of cases, but we are doing our very best to shorten the time between the original claim and reference to the medical referee.

Following is the reply:

Separate figures for coalminers are not available, but the number of cases among miners generally, the majority of whom will have been coalminers, were as follows:


1938
…
…
…
254


1939
…
…
…
305


1940
…
…
…
402


1941
…
…
…
573


1942
…
…
…
884


1943
…
…
…
1,207


1944
…
…
…
1,506


1945
…
…
…
1,867

Departmental Correspondence

Mr. Champion: asked the Minister of National Insurance if he will take the administrative steps necessary to ensure that people writing to his Department at Blackpool about pensions and family allowances will receive an early acknowledgment of their letters.

Mr. J. Griffiths: During the war the routine acknowledgment of incoming letters was very largely suspended by Government Departments; but I have now given instructions that in future all letters addressed to my Ministry are to be acknowledged unless a substantive reply is expected to be sent within seven days. It has always been the practice to acknowledge the receipt of the claims themselves.

Mr. Shurmer: Is the Minister aware that many of these old age pensioners meet with kindness on the part of postmistresses up and down the country and, in writing for these old people who cannot write for themselves, these postmistresses are receiving very curt replies from the Ministry at Blackpool? Will he see that in future they get decent replies?

Mr. Griffiths: I regret that, and I wish to acknowledge freely the assistance given to us by the postmasters and postmistresses in the 27,000 post offices of this country, who collaborate with us in the issue of these pension books.

Elderly Contributors

Mr. Sparks: asked the Minister of National Insurance the estimated number of women, over 50, and men, over 55 years of age, who will fail to qualify under the National Insurance Act, 1946, for retirement pensions at 60 and 65 years of age, respectively, by reason of their not being previously insured.

Mr. J. Griffiths: It is estimated that about 500,000 men aged 55 to 65, and 300,000 spinsters and widows aged 50-60, will become liable to be insured for the first time under the National Insurance Act, 1946. When they reach the pension age they will be allowed to choose whether they wish to claim a refund of retirement pension contributions and surrender their retirement pension rights or would prefer to continue paying contributions until they complete the 10 years qualifying period, when they can qualify for pensions at the full rate.

Mr. Sparks: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider allowing these categories of persons to make retrospective contributions, in order that they may qualify at an earlier date than otherwise?

Mr. Griffiths: No, Sir. We have received a large number of applications from persons who would like to make retrospective payments, and some who would like to pay by lump sum. I am afraid it would be absolutely impossible to consider schemes of that kind.

Age-Barred Officers (Assistance Board)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether Assistance Board circular, G. 103/46, paragraph 13, is an indication that it is the intention of the Board to discharge

age-barred officers before the completion of the 10-years' service required to entitle them to pension.

Mr. J. Griffiths: No, Sir. The circular referred to does no more than remind the staff of the Board of a long-standing rule under which the Board may call upon any officer to retire after reaching the age of 60. Individual cases will continue to be considered on their merits.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the apprehension to which the issue of this circular at this time has given rise, can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that it is not in general his intention to discard officers in this class until they have had an opportunity to earn their pension?

Mr. Griffiths: I hoped that my answer, that individual cases would be considered on their merits, would be reassuring to the persons concerned.

Government Trainees (Insurance Rights)

Mr. Symonds: asked the Minister of National Insurance what steps he is taking to safeguard the health insurance rights of men embarking on Government training courses after demobilisation

Mr. J. Griffiths: Regulations are in preparation which will provide for the excusal of arrears of health and pensions contributions in the case of persons undergoing a course of training or rehabilitation under a scheme approved by the Minister of National Insurance. I am sending a copy of the draft Regulalions to my hon. Friend

Family Allowances (Complaints)

Mr. Daines: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he will now state what action it is proposed to take as a result of the examination of the complaints arising out of the working of the Family Allowances Act, to which his attention has been drawn.

Mr. J. Griffiths: We have carefully examined the position. All the new and expanded social service schemes must be considered as a coordinated whole and most of the difficulties which have arisen out of the piecemeal introduction of parts of the schemes will be removed when the full schemes are in operation.
In the meantime the Assistance Board have been considering the position of children in families drawing supplementary


pensions or unemployment assistance. They have now submitted draft Regulations embodying increases in their scale rates for children which have been accepted by the Government, and I propose to lay these draft Regulations before Parliament this week, when copies will be available in the Vote Office.

Mr. Daines: Has the Minister had any consultations with the Minister of Health in regard to family allowances and public assistance cases?

Mr. Griffiths: Public assistance is a matter that falls within the jurisdiction of the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland. They have certainly been called into consultation, and both will be communicating as a result of these new regulations.

Mr. Stephen: May I ask my right hon. Friend if he is going to introduce this Session his third and final proposals to afford security and to correct the anomalies that exist and are causing hardship to various people?

Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, while the proposed increase in Assistance Board rates will be welcomed, they will make even more unsatisfactory the 5s. children's benefit payable to every child but the first of a man drawing benefit under the Minister's new insurance scheme?

Mr. Griffiths: I appreciate the difficulties which arise, but they are very largely difficulties springing from the piecemeal introduction of this legislation. I am, I hope, entitled to remind hon. Members that we were under considerable pressure to begin the payment of children's allowances before the others.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

German Prisoners of War

Mr. Martin Lindsay: asked the Minister of Labour what steps are being taken to induce individual German prisoners of war working in the United Kingdom to defer their return to Germany.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I am informed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War that while no special inducements are offered, prisoners, as their turn for repatriation comes, are normally given the opportunity of volunteering to stay for six months.

Mr. Lindsay: Does not the Minister appreciate that it is quite impossible to have a planned economy without being able to place labour where it is urgently needed, and that as it is impossible to direct British labour, the Government have no choice but to make much more use of foreigners?

Mr. Isaacs: I have answered the Question on the Order Paper, which shows that we have offered these men an opportunity to stay here for six months.

Agricultural Workers

Major Legge-Bourke: asked the Minister of Labour how many of the 3,000 unemployed agricultural workers have been in employment during the recent harvest; how many were then classed as casual workers; and how many are unemployed as a result of voluntary dismissal.

Mr. Isaacs: Only four of the unemployed workers in agriculture at 16th September were classified as casual workers. I regret that the information asked for in the other parts of the Question is not available.

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Minister of Labour how many of the 3,457 registered unemployed agricultural workers on 16th September were living in an area where the harvest was not completed; and, in view of the unlimited demand for farm workmen during September, why these men were entitled to draw unemployment pay.

Mr. Isaacs: I am unable to give the figure asked for in the first part of the Question. Those who were receiving unemployment benefit must have been satisfying the statutory requirements which entitled them to payment.

Mr. Baldwin: In view of the fact that these men must have known at least a fortnight ahead that they were going to be unemployed, is there no machinery under which they can be directed to work when they are registered as unemployed?

Mr. Isaacs: This question is specifically related to agricultural workers who are unemployed at a certain date, and whether they are living in an area where the harvest was not completed. We should have to make inquiries, firstly, into the exact areas in which the men were living, and, secondly, whether the harvest was completed at that date in those areas. Men are sent to work as soon as a vacancy occurs.

Major Legge-Bourke: Are these men offered agricultural work before they are offered any other type of work?

Mr. Isaacs: Most definitely. I think I shall be safe in saying that wherever agricultural workers are shown over a period as unemployed on the books, it is not the same men with whom we are dealing There are some on the books at a given moment, but they are not always the same people at different dates.

Building Trainees

Mr. George Thomas: asked the Minister of Labour what steps are taken to insure full employment for those trained as builders or carpenters at the Government training centres.

Mr. Isaacs: The number of men being trained in the building trades is based on the estimated requirements of the industry to make good the present deficiency of skilled craftsmen, and full employment should thus be assured by the development of local building programmes.

Mr. Thomas: Is the Minister aware that this is not working out in practice in South Wales, where difficulty is being found in placing these men in employment when they have finished their course of training? Will he bring pressure to bear on local authorities to see that they employ their full quota of trainees?

Mr. Isaacs: I shall be most grateful it the hon. Member will let me have particulars, because we will then look into the matter.

Mr. Gammans: How many of these trainees are unemployed, or are unable to secure employment after training?

Mr. Isaacs: I could not answer that question without notice. I should be glad to give the information, but it is a very small number indeed.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: What action is being taken to place people in employment in those areas where trade unions refuse to grant them membership cards?

Mr. Isaacs: That is quite another question. I should like to have particulars of that, because I should be most surprised to find that it was so.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: They have been notified already.

Factory Site, Garnant

Mr. G. Thomas: asked the Minister of Labour to what exchange in South Wales came the order to place 20 men on a site prior to the visit of the President of the Board of Trade; and why those men were compelled to sign on at the exchange again on the day following that visit.

Mr. Isaacs: I assume my hon. Friend is referring to a factory site in the area of the Garnant office of my Department. Between 30th September and 9th October eight men were engaged, and another 12 started work on 19th October. Site clearance work had to be suspended, and nine men were discharged on 22nd October, and 11 on 25th October, because manual excavation was completed and a mechanical excavator had not arrived. These movements of labour were in no way connected with the visit of my right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade on 22nd October.

Port of London (Dismissals)

Mr. Frank Byers: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the assurance recently given that timber imports would be increased in the future, he will investigate the dismissal of the 213 men from the supplementary register of the P.L.A. on the grounds of redundancy.

Mr. Isaacs: I am looking into this matter and will write to the hon. Member.

Appointments Department (Advisory Council)

Sir John Mellor: asked the Minister of Labour why he has set up an advisory council for the Appointments Department.

Mr. Isaacs: I have set up this council because I felt that the advice of representatives of industry, commerce, the trade unions and the Services on this problem would be an invaluable aid to the Department in providing the best possible service.

Sir J. Mellor: Will the Minister particularly direct the attention of the committee to the fact that the Department has recently cost well over £10 for each vacancy filled?

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, and I would also direct the committee's attention to the fact that it is jolly well worth the money.

Air-Commodore Harvey: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why this advisory council was not set up months ago?

Mr. Isaacs: The council was not set up to advise the Department on how to constitute the machinery, but how to operate the machinery. We had the advice of another committee in regard to construction, and now that we have the material to sell, these gentlemen are acting as salesmen and advisers to us. We have already placed 40,000 people.

Factory Inspectorate (Recruitment)

Mr. John Lewis: asked the Minister of Labour what steps are being taken by his Department to recruit an adequate number of factory inspectors with proper qualifications, in view of the fact that since the end of the war 43 inspectors have resigned or retired, that only six have been appointed, and that the revised salary scales now proposed compare unfavourably with those offered to other technical grades in the Civil Service.

Mr. Isaacs: Steps are being taken in the next few weeks to recruit factory inspectors through Civil Service Commission reconstruction competitions to the permanent inspectorate. Officers of my Department are at present in negotiation with representatives of the staff in regard to rates of pay for factory inspectors.

Mr. Lewis: Is not my right hon. Friend of the opinion that his recruitment difficulties could be eased if he would recruit factory inspectors from the professional grades of civil servants instead of the technical grades? Is he aware that the announcement recently made by his establishment branch, to the effect that they are making men factory inspectors at the age of 22 and without previous works experience, is having a serious effect on factory administration?

Mr. Isaacs: The first part of the question asks for an opinion, and I shall not venture to express one [Interruption.]If hon. Members knew what my opinion was on some things they would be shocked. In regard to the second part of the question, if the hon. Member will let me have particulars I shall be glad to look into the matter.

Mr. Glossop: How many of the vacancies will be filled by women and bow many by men?

Mr. Isaacs: I could not give the number, but we shall certainly see that the necessary services of women are taken into consideration in this matter.

Hotel Management (Training)

Mr. Snadden: asked the Minister of Labour what representations he has received from the Hotel and Restaurant Association regarding the training of students from this country in hotel management abroad, particularly in Switzerland; and what steps he proposes to take in this matter.

Mr. Isaacs: Agreement in principle has been reached with the Swiss Government for the exchange of young hotel student employees between the two countries on a "head for head" basis. The Hotels and Restaurants Association of Great Britain, in consultation with my Department, are at present engaged in working out details of the scheme with the Swiss Hotels Association. It is hoped that similar arrangements may be made with certain other European countries.

Building Workers (Changed Employment)

Mr. Dumpleton: asked the Minister of Labour the total number of workers formerly engaged in the building industry in England and Wales who are now working in other industries.

Mr. Isaacs: I regret that the information is not available.

Mr. Dumpleton: Is the Minister aware that the number is quite large, and in view of the needs of the housing programme, will he see whether any steps can be taken to recruit back these men?

Mr. Isaacs: We are unable to compel men to leave other employment and come back into this industry, but whenever a man registers at an exchange, careful inquiry is made into each case, and if we find that a man has been in this industry or has a capacity to be of service in the industry, every effort is made to persuade him to come into it.

Temporary Civil Servants (Control)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Labour the Government's policy regarding the retention of temporary civil servants who volunteered during the war; what is the limit to the number of years


which such temporary civil servants will be compelled to serve; how many temporary civil servants have been refused release; how many have vacated their jobs without receiving official permission; and what action has been taken against such absentees.

Mr. Isaacs: The matters referred to in the first two parts of the Question are under consideration. As regards the third and fourth parts of the Question, information is not available. The total number of civil servants, both permanent and temporary, who have been refused release on appeal up to 30th September, 1946, was 3,513. Thirty-nine civil servants, permanent and temporary, have been prosecuted for infringements of the Control of Employment (Civil Servants) Order, 1945.

Sir W. Smirhers: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that keeping volunteers in employment against their will amounts to forced labour?

Mr. W. J. Brown: Can the Minister say when he anticipates he will be in a position to lift the Control of Employment Order as it affects civil servants?

Mr. Isaacs: I am asked when I anticipate. I have very happy anticipations of making an announcement shortly.

Resettlement Grants

Major Tufton Beamish: asked the Minister of Labour how many of his officials are empowered to withhold a resettlement grant from an ex-Serviceman, who fulfils the necessary qualifications, simply on the grounds that the chances of such a grant being successfully applied are considered remote.

Mr. Isaacs: The decision to make or withhold a resettlement grant is not taken by any single officer of my Department. Every application is carefully examined by one of 35 boards, each presided over by the chairman of the district manpower board. The board are responsible for the expenditure of public money and, therefore, it is their duty to satisfy themselves that any grant made will be properly expended. If, in any particular case, they are of opinion that the proposed business has no reasonable prospect of success, they have no option but to reject the application.

Major Beamish: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what appeal there is against the decision of these boards, on whose whim a resettlement grant is made?

Mr. Isaacs: There is no question of a whim. These boards are given power Which it is their responsibility to carry out.

Major Beamish: But what appeal is there? Cannot the right hon. Gentleman answer that?

Mr. Isaacs: I must admit that at the moment I cannot. I am sorry. It is no good trying to guess an answer, and I will undertake to write to the hon. and gallant Gentleman and let him know.

Night Baking (Negotiations)

Mr. Symonds: asked the Minister of Labour if the negotiations between the representatives of employers' and workers' organisations in the baking industry with regard to the abolition of night baking have now been completed; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Isaacs: The negotiations are still going on.

Work Stoppages

Major Guy Lloyd: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in the published returns with regard to the stoppages of work due to strikes, stoppages due to disputes not connected with terms of employment are excluded; and what is the number of working days lost during the last 12 months due to such reasons alone.

Mr. Isaacs: The statistics relating to industrial disputes compiled by my Department exclude stoppages of work due to disputes not connected with terms of employment or conditions of labour. I am unable to state the number of days lost through such stoppages.

Major Lloyd: Is the Minister aware that the public is a great deal inconvenienced by these petty stoppages, which are due to no legitimate reason at all? Is he taking no interest or action in the matter?

Mr. Isaacs: I do not accept that mild censure. I have been asked what are the stoppages. There was, for instance, a stoppage of work because there was a grouse about rations, another was due to a legal decision against one or more men,


and women went on strike about the question of a gratuity from the Women's Land Army No statistics are returnable to me for these strikes, and I have no detailed information about them, but I know that they are very small.

Scotland

Mr. Gallacher: asked the Minister of Labour if his attention has been drawn to the increase of unemployment in Scotland and, in particular, to the high percentage of unemployment in Glasgow; and what steps he is taking to remedy this situation.

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. The Government's policy to meet this situation is to ensure the provision of additional opportunities for work and the steps which have been taken to this end are already showing their effect. If my hon. Friend desires detailed particulars of the progress made I would ask him to put down a Question to my right hon. and learned Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Kirkwood: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that the growing unemployment in Glasgow and the West of Scotland generally is causing alarm? Take John Brown's yard, for instance If they could get 200 more tons of steel each week they could employ 1,000 or 1,500 more men than they do at the moment. That applies to all shipyards on the Clyde.

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, but the Ministry of Labour cannot supply the 200 tons of steel. The situation in Scotland, I am happy to say, is improving. New projects, additional industrial establishments, are going ahead, a number are in operation, and a great number of others are actually in progress. Although they will not change the situation overnight, there is considerable improvement going on.

Captain MacLeod: Is it not a fact that if the Government had a policy for the Highlands and treated them as a development area, it would decrease unemployment in Glasgow?

Mr. Gallacher: While I agree that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government are doing their best, will not the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues, in view of the increase in unemployment, make an effort to do better than their best?

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. I spent last week end in that area going over the matter. At the Hillington training establishment we are already doing better than our best.

Mr. Scollan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that while shipyards on the Clyde are wanting steel we have a factory which cost £1¼million, for the making of steel, standing idle at Linwood Road? What is he doing about that?

Mr. Isaacs: That place has been under consideration by a very eminent national firm of engineers for a long time. Had they said, "Yes," it would have been all right, but they said, "No,' and now we have to start all over again to find someone else who will take it

Mr. Spence: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that the export of sheet steel for shipbuilding will be stopped, so that we can keep it at home for our own workmen?

Mr. Isaacs: The hon. Member might ask me about the export of manpower, but should not make me responsible for answering on the export of sheet steel.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL SERVICE

University Students

Mr. Hicks: asked the Minister of Labour why students at technical colleges who are taking a university degree course have been excluded from the Government's undertaking not to call up university students until after they have completed their course.

Mr. Isaacs: The students referred to are presumably those who have started their courses under the age for call up, and have been granted temporary deferment until the end of the following July in order to take certain examinations. No undertaking has ever been given that such students, whether at a university or a technical college, would not be called up until they had completed their course.

Mr. Hicks: Does not my right hon. Friend think that, in regard to technical colleges, recruitment of students is chiefly from the artisan class? While I am not trying to inveigle him into expressing an opinion, may I ask whether he does not think that that savours a little of social distinction in favour of the universities?

Mr. Isaacs: No, because, taking it by and large, the same treatment is given to technical students as to university students.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: In framing the new Bill for compulsory service, will not the Government bear this point in mind, because it is of the highest importance to our export drive that these young men should complete their education?

Mr. Isaacs: There is no doubt that that will be borne in mind.

Mr. Walkden: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that some of our most successful "back room boys" during the war were recruited from technical colleges, and that many lads were seeking a university degree? Cannot he grant the same facilities to external students as to full time university degree students?

Mr. Isaacs: If my hon. Friend has any further information perhaps he will let me have it, but, as I have said, both classes are treated in precisely the same way.

Demobilisation (Rate of Release)

Mr. H. Hynd: asked the Minister of Labour if he will make a statement of the reasons why demobilisation cannot be speeded up beyond the basis laid down in the table he published on 6th November.

Mr. Isaacs: The provisional programme of releases from the Forces beyond 31st December, which I announced on 6th November, represents the maximum rate of release consistent with the need for maintaining sufficient Armed Forces to meet current commitments.

Mr. Hynd: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the dissatisfaction there is in the Forces about this matter, and would he not consider issuing to the Army something on the lines of the excellent statement issued on this subject by the Royal Air Force?

Mr. Isaacs: I appreciate the excellence of the statement by the Royal Air Force, and I am informed that the other Services contemplate something similar. I think it would be very helpful.

Mr. Warbey: When my right hon. Friend or his colleagues are issuing a statement, will they endeavour to explain

to the men in the Services the exact commitments which have caused the target for our Armed Forces to be raised over the level envisaged?

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot dictate to my right hon. Friends what should be in the statement.

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: Can the right hon. Gentleman say to what extent the delay in demobilisation is due to troubles in Palestine?

Mr. Isaacs: It is not for me to differentiate between the importance of one commitment and another. My duty is to carry out what has been the agreed rate of release to meet those commitments, and there my responsibility ends.

Mr. Eden: Would the right hon. Gentleman consult the Prime Minister about this, because we are all receiving large numbers of letters on this subject from the Services? If the fullest information could be given about the reasons I am sure it should be given.

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, in view of what has been said I will certainly consult my right hon. Friend and my colleagues about it, but I would point out that the commitments are there.

Mr. A. Edward Davies: Would my right hon. Friend, in considering this matter afresh, see whether anything can be done to adjust the age groups? There are many complaints coming from men who having been in the Forces for four or five years are not receiving such good treatment as some men who have not been in the Forces and who fall outside the age groups.

Mr. G. Wallace: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that there is no wastage of skilled manpower in the Forces?

Mr. Isaacs: I am not in a position to answer for what happens in the Forces, but in view of the tightness of manpower I believe that they are making the best use of their men.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Public Library Rate

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he intends to introduce legislation to raise the existing public library rate limit.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Buchanan): As he explained on 2nd July, 1946, in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood), my right hon. Friend intends, before legislation is prepared to give the Advisory Council on Education, as soon as it is reconstituted, a remit on library provision generally.

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that this matter is urgent, as the library authorities are faced with paying increased salary scales under the award of the Joint Industrial Council, and this money can only be met by reducing the expenditure on books?

Mr. Buchanan: I do not deny that it is urgent, but both the hon. and gallant Gentleman and I know of much more urgent matters than that in Scotland at the present time.

Housing (Modernisation)

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when it is intended to publish the Report of the Scottish Housing Advisory Committee on Reconditioning.

Mr. Buchanan: The Report of the Scottish Housing Advisory Committee on the modernisation of existing houses is at present in the hands of the printer, and will be published as soon as possible.

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: Can the hon. Gentleman say how long this Report has been in the hands of the printers, and when he expects it to be published?

Mr. Buchanan: The right hon. and learned Gentleman must ask the printers when they will finish their job. If I controlled the printers, I would do fairly well. It has been in their hands a fair time, and we hope that it will be published as soon as it is finished.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: Can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there is no delay caused by the fact that the contents of the Report are not favourable to Government policy?

Mr. Buchanan: I should have been annoyed if I had not been asked that supplementary question. As soon as the Report came from the committee, my right hon. Friend and I discussed the matter, and the first decision which we

made, within a very short time, was to have it printed and circulated to the public.

Tuberculosis Allowances

Lieut.-Commander Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether it is his intention to introduce amending legislation so as to enable a person who is in receipt of a tuberculosis allowance under the terms of D.H.S. Circular No. 36A/1943 to draw, if otherwise eligible, the allowance payable under the Family Allowances Act, 1945.

Mr. Buchanan: Recent social legislation has aimed at the principle of avoiding duplication of benefits payable out of public funds, but my right hon. Friend is in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health about the possibility, of increasing the rate for children under the Tuberculosis Allowances Scheme.

Missing Boys, Carstairs (Inquiry)

Mr. Lipson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what action he has taken with regard to two boys, aged 12 years, missing from an institution at Carstairs, Lanarkshire, of whom, after a week, one was found dead and the other suffering from frost-bite and exposure; why they were not discovered earlier; and if he will have a full investigation into the conditions at the institution concerned.

Mr. Buchanan: The General Board of Control for Scotland have investigated fully the circumstances of the accident, and it is to be the subject of a public inquiry under the Fatal Accidents Inquiry Acts. The boys escaped at dusk and a search by police and staff in the extensive grounds, which began within ten minutes of their escape, failed to find them. The reasons for this may emerge when the boy who survived is fit to be questioned. I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my sympathy with the relatives of the two boys.

Mr. Lipson: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether an inquiry has been begun, and how long it will take?

Mr. Buchanan: Notice of an inquiry into a fatal accident is published in the newspapers in Scotland as to when it is to be held—and it takes a fair time—which


is quite proper, as everyone should be given an opportunity of attending it. There is a legal method that decides the time, and that time will be duly operated.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Will the hon. Gentleman make certain that during this inquiry there is no possibility of victimisation of the other boys who have to give evidence from that particular home?

Mr. Buchanan: My information about the home—I do not want to anticipate the inquiry—is that, so far, it has been exceedingly well run. I will make inquiries to see that there is nothing like that, but I should be terribly surprised if there was anything, because our reports are not of that kind.

Regional Planning Advisory Committees

Mr. Niall Macpherson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what regional planning advisory committees have been constituted for Scotland; what are their terms of reference; and to what extent industrialists and trades union leaders are represented as such on the committees.

Mr. Buchanan: Three regional planning advisory committees have been appointed in Scotland, one for the Clyde Valley area, another for central and South-East Scotland, and the third for East-Central Scotland. These committees consist exclusively of representatives of local planning authorities, and their functions are to prepare reports on the major planning problems of the regions and to suggest the broad lines on which the development of the regions should proceed. The committees keep in close touch with industrial interests in the carrying out of their work.

Mr. Macpherson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in at least one case, the committee failed to consult any of the local associations of industrialists, and will he make certain that does not happen again?

Mr. Buchanan: In these days of committees, it is terribly difficult to control every one of their activities. I think that the Question which the hon. and gallant Gentleman has put to the House and the publicity given should ensure that being done in the future.

Baling Wire

Mr. Snadden: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is aware of the unsatisfactory position regarding looped and cut baling wire; what steps he is taking to increase the supplies available to agriculturists; and whether he has had any consultations on this subject with the Ministry of Supply and with what result.

Mr. Buchanan: The production of cut and looped wire continues to be insufficient to meet all requirements, but supplies have been made available this season for agriculturists in Scotland, at the same rate as for the last year or two. In view of representations that this supply is unsatisfactory in certain areas, arrangements have been made with the Minister of Supply for a small additional quantity for these areas.

Water and Drainage Schemes

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the number of schemes received by his department by 31st October, 1946, for the development of water supplies and drainage schemes in rural areas; and the estimated number of men for whom these schemes will provide employment.

Mr. Buchanan: Applications for grant for water supplies and drainage schemes under the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Act, 1944, number 903. They represent employment of the order of 66,000 man-years.

Afforestation (Roads)

Mr. Willis: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what arrangements are being made for the provision of roads in connection with afforestation plans; and the estimated number of men who will be employed on this work.

Mr. Buchanan: A scheme has been prepared for providing roads in connection with afforestation plans, and the organisation necessary to run the scheme is in process of formation. It is not, at this stage, possible to state the number of men who can be recruited for this work, but subject to the availability of camps and road-making plant, the scheme will provide employment for several thousands of men.

Water Supplies (Advisory Committee)

Mr. Pryde: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is now in a position to make a statement in regard to the advisory committee to be set up in terms of the Water (Scotland) Act, 1946.

Mr. Buchanan: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend has appointed an advisory committee consisting of 17 members, which will be holding its first meeting this week. A list of members is being circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the list:

SCOTTISH WATER ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Chairman:

Major G. H. M. Broun Lindsay, D.S.O., Association of County Councils in Scotland.

Members:

G. Baxter, Esq., O.B.E., M.I.C.E. M.I.W.E., Scottish Counties of Cities Association.
S. N. Cozens-Hardy, Esq., Scottish Council (Development and Industry).
J. F. Duncan, Esq., Scottish Farm Servants' Union.
A. A. Fulton, Esq., B.Sc, M.I.C.E., M.I.Mech.E., North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board.
G. Matthew Fyfe, Esq., M.B., Ch B., D.P.H., Society of Medical Officers of Health (Scottish Branch).
W. Gray, Esq., O.B.E., M.Inst.M. &amp; Cy.E, M.I.W.E, Institution of Water Engineers (Scottish Section).
R. Lyle, Esq., B.L., Convention of Royal Burghs.
J. W. McKillop, Esq., Association of County Councils in Scotland.
W. Malloch, Esq., B.Sc, Scottish Salmon Fisheries.
J. Mann, Esq., Association'of County Councils in Scotland.
The Earl of Mansfield, Scottish Land and Property Federation.
A. Porter, Esq., Scottish Counties of Cities Association.
D. Ronald, Esq., M.I.C.E., F.R.S.E., A Consulting Engineer.
J. R. Rutherford, Esq., C.B.E., J.P., Convention of Royal Burghs.
J. Vallance, Esq., National Farmers' Union and Chamber of Agriculture of Scotland.
G. E. R. Young, Esq., Federation of British Industries.

DARTMOOR (BATTLE-TRAINING AREA)

Mr. Heathcoat Amory: asked the Prime Minister whether he will ensure that a local inquiry is held before any decisions are reached for occupation of parts of Dartmoor for military purposes which would conflict with its use as a national park.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): Sir, a local inquiry will be held.

SOUTH AFRICAN GIFT (USE)

Major Beamish: asked the Prime Minister how he proposes to dispose of the gifts of a gold certificate for £985,000 from the people of South Africa and the British Protectorates, and a bank certificate of £196,625 from the people of Durban and the Province of Natal, so that the people of Britain, for whom these gifts are intended, may benefit as a whole.

The Prime Minister: It has not yet been possible to decide the allocation of the very generous gift made by the people of South Africa for the benefit of the people of Britain, but I am giving careful attention to it. I am glad to have this opportunity of giving further public expression to the gratitude which is felt in this country for this spontaneous and welcome gift.

FREE PORT (GREAT BRITAIN)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will now make a statement on the possibility of establishing a free port in Great Britain; and whether he will consider adopting one of the South Wales ports, in view of their convenient situation and the necessity of augmenting trade and industry in this area.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend has now examined this question very carefully with my right hon. Friends the President of the Board of Trade and the Minister of Transport. Their conclusion is that a free port system offers no advantages over the existing Customs facilities which


are available in our ports, and that it would not assist either our foreign trade or industrial development.

Mr. Freeman: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether he has consulted the South Wales shippers and others concerned, and if that is also their opinion?

Mr. Glenvil Halt: I can assure my hon. Friend that the shipping interests as well as other commercial interests and the men's representatives have all been consulted, and there has been a good deal of opposition to the suggestion.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

War Damaged Houses (Rent Compensation)

Mr. Dumpleton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether in view of the cases of hardship involved, further consideration can now be given to the possibility of the payment of compensation in respect of rent of alternative accommodation taken in place of houses destroyed by enemy action.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: My right hon. Friend is afraid that he could not undertake to bring expenses of this kind generally within the field of public compensation.

Mr. Dumpleton: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are many cases of real hardship in this connection, and that the compensation receivable is much less than the expenses incurred, and will he ask his right hon. Friend carefully to review the matter?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: My right hon. Friend and I have looked at this matter very carefully, and we agreed that there are cases of great hardship. The trouble is that we cannot legislate for hardship cases; I wish we could. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Not in these cases.

Income Tax (Travelling Expenses)

Mr. Dumpleton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will take into consideration the fact that many people are unable to obtain living accommodation near their work and therefore consider the possibility of affording some Income Tax relief on their travelling expenses.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The law already provides for an Income Tax allowance to employees, up to £10 a year, in respect of additional travelling expenses incurred by reason of a change in place of work or residence, through circumstances connected with the war.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Does not the Financial Secretary think that that should, very rightly, be extended, since people cannot get accommodation near their work, and that is, just as much as anything else, a charge on their income for which they are not responsible?

Mr. Dumpleton: Could my hon. Friend say what are the circumstances connected with the war?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I thought it was generally Known what is meant by that phrase. Most of us who were in the House during the war realised how this worked. In reply to the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson), when we discuss the next Finance Bill there will be an excellent opportunity to go into this matter much more fully than we can do today by Question and answer.

Mr. Nicholson: Will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that he will not go into that discussion with a closed mind?

Pound (Purchasing; Power)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give details of the information and sources on which he bases his calculations that the purchasing power of the £sterling is 45 compared with 1900, including the cost-of-living subsidy.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: The calculations are based on the cost-of-living index.

Sir W. Smithers: Is the Financial Secretary aware that I, for one, have no confidence in the accuracy of the several calculations made by the Treasury? Is he also aware that on another basis, of calculation, .45, which is 9s., works out at about 5s., and will he have another look at the matter?

American Films (Dollar Expenditure)

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what dollar expenditure has been incurred in the year to date on the hire or purchase of U.S. films.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: About 61 million dollars in the ten months to 31st October, 1946.

Colonel Hutchison: Does not the Financial Secretary consider that, with the shortage of dollar credits from which this country is suffering, this is an unwise expenditure?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I was answering the Question on the Order Paper, and I do not propose to answer any others.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: Does the Financial Secretary really say that, in his opinion, the import of these cheap and nasty films is generally not a waste of dollars?

Colonel Hutchison: In view of the completely unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I propose to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Estate Duties (Timber)

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much was received by the Treasury in respect of Estate and Succession Duties on timber for each of the years 1930 to 1946, respectively.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: This information is not available.

Bradford Stamp Office

Mr. McLeavy: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered the letters, dated 25th September and 9th October, which have been sent to the Inland Revenue Department by the Bradford Chamber of Commerce and a further letter of 26th October from the Bradford City Council urging the reopening of the Bradford Stamp Office and drawing attention to the serious delay caused by the Bradford business concerns having to deal through the Leeds office; and if he will take action accordingly.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Yes, Sir. But my right hon. Friend regrets that the amount of stamp duty work in Bradford does not justify an office there.

Mr. McLeavy: Is my hon. Friend aware that the statistics produced by the Inland Revenue authorities are not regarded as reliable as far as Bradford is concerned, and will he receive a joint deputation on the matter from the Bradford City Council and the Chamber of Commerce?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Certainly, Sir. We are always willing at the Treasury to see any deputation which my hon. Friend or any other hon. Member wishes to bring to us, but I would remind him that there was an office in Bradford before the war, and that there was so little business for it that it was closed down.

Postwar Credits (Payment)

Mr. West: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider authorising the payment of postwar credits for the benefit of a deceased's estate, on the written application of personal representatives, in those cases where the deceased person would have been entitled to payment had he made written application therefor before his death.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Payment of postwar credit can be made only to claimants who have reached the age limits prescribed by Section 26 of this year's Finance Act and there is no power to waive those limits.

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: Will not the Financial Secretary reconsider this matter, in view of the importance of a deceased person's accounts being cleared up without a lengthy and expensive legal process, which may run on for years?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: As was fully explained at the time when the legislation was going through the House, none of these eventualities need arise. The thing is quite simple.

Mr. T. J. Brooks: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider at an early date the payment of postwar credits in cases of illness and proved hardship covered by medical evidence; and when he intends to make a general payment of postwar credits.

Mr. Hoy: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the repayment of postwar credits to persons who have been in receipt of Workmen's Compensation or National Health Insurance benefits for more than one year.

Sir J. Mellor: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in order to encourage national savings, he will give an assurance that the Government have no intention of further taxing capital.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: My right hon. Friend has noted my hon. Friends' suggestion, but they will not expect him to anticipate his Budget Statement.

Mr. Brooks: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is serious hardship among these people who are ill, and will he do something about their position?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: It is very difficult. As has been said on many occasions, in reply to similar Questions, it is very difficult to know just where one can draw the line on hardship in these matters.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that no good purpose whatever is served by permitting the continuance of the state of affairs in which public assistance has to be given to persons who have financial claims against the Treasury which are unnecessarily deferred?

National Savings Movement (Expenses)

Mr. Osborne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many paid people are employed by the National Savings Movement; and what is the annual cost of salaries, printing and other expenses.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: One thousand one hundred and ninety persons and £1,500,000.

Mr. Osborne: Is the Financial Secretary aware that the average sale of Savings Certificates during the last month for which figures were published was only £105,000 per week, as against over £5,000,000 in 1943, and in view of the smallness of sales now does he not think that the whole thing ought to be recast and put on to a voluntary basis, and expenses saved?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: A great deal of it is on a voluntary basis. A wonderful job of work is being done by thousands of voluntary workers, and we are very grateful to them.

Imports and Exports (Balance)

Sir Stanley Reed: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the volume of imports in 1946 was paid for by exports, visible and invisible; and what proportion was met from credits in Canada and other countries of the British Commonwealth and Empire and the U.S.A.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: This information will be available in the New Year.

Sir S. Reed: Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear to all classes in the country that dollar credits are not inexhaustible, and are merely a means of tiding over between now and the readjustment of our own economy?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I hope that is generally understood.

Distribution of Industry (Assistance)

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of applications for financial assistance made under Section 4 of the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945; and the number and amount of grants or loans made by the Treasury and by the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, Limited, and the Finance Corporation for Industry, respectively

Mr. Glenvil Hall: There have been 38 firm applications to the Treasury Four were withdrawn, eight loan schemes involving £438,500 have been approved, and 15 projects are now under consideration. The chairman of the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, Limited, has stated that about I /5th of the finance of £5 million so far approved by that corporation has been for development areas. The Finance Corporation for Industry will be publishing a report within the next few months

Mr. Chetwynd: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that adequate use is being made of this Section to provide for industries in the development areas?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: We hope so. It is for those who need assistance to come to the Government and ask for it. When applications are made we receive them with all sympathy; in fact, we invite them.

Football Matches (Entertainments Duty)

Mr. Garry Allighan: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his inquiries whether remission of Entertainments Tax is being fully applied to the cheaper stands at football club matches have been completed; and if he can yet make a statement.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: No, Sir, not yet.

Mr. Garry Allighan: In view of the fact that the Minister undertook to inquire into


this scandal over six weeks ago, has he any idea when he expects to receive a report?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: My right hon. Friend hopes it will be as soon as possible. He has seen the English Football League, and is now in touch with its Scottish counterpart.

Mr. Keeling: Will the Financial Secretary give an undertaking that no pressure will be applied to Rugby clubs, which make no profit and do not require any encouragement to reduce their charges when they can?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Obviously, we do not want to apply pressure where no pressure is needed.

Cash Transactions (Limit)

Mr. Douglas Marshall: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider taking the necessary steps to prevent retail shops and wholesale establishments transacting cash business in excess of £100 otherwise than by cheque.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: No, Sir. Such a control would be an unjustifiable infringement of individual liberty and could not, in fact, be made fully effective.

Mr. Marshall: Am I to understand from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not anxious about such large cash transactions?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: That is another question, but I hope hon. Members will realise the difficulty of trying to implement such a suggestion as this, supposing my right hon. Friend were willing to try.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED STATES LOAN

Dollar Drawings

Mr. Gammans: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much of the U.S. loan has been spent or hypothecated already.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Six hundred million dollars has been drawn.

Mr. Gammans: Can the hon. Gentleman say how that is divided as between consumer goods, such as films, and capital goods, which was the purpose for which the loan was taken?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: I think the hon. Gentleman should put that question on the Order Paper. It is not the sort of question I could answer offhand.

Mr. Keeling: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the second part of the Question—"hypothecated"?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: That is the same question, put in another way, as that of the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans). I am not at the moment prepared to answer that question.

Sir Frank Sanderson: Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that no goods will be purchased from the dollar area which can be purchased from the sterling area?

British Trade Deficits

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the sharp rise in prices in the U.S.A., His Majesty's Government have reviewed their estimate whereby the U.S. loan would cover anticipated trade deficits of this country until 1950.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Yes, Sir. We are watching this closely.

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Since this loan is only worth about four-fifths of what it was when we borrowed it, can the Financial Secretary give any indication how the Government are going to avoid either buying less or finding their credit run out before we economically get on our feet?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Most of the points in that supplementary are hypothetical, and I think we must wait and see.

Sir W. Smithers: Can the hon. Gentleman say what is the sterling value of the remaining portions of the American Loan compared with eight months ago?

Major Cecil Poole: Is it not a fact that the capital expenditure on goods in 1946 or 1947 may be much more valuable than capital expenditure in 1949–50?

Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: In view of the most unsatisfactory nature of the answer given, I propose to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — TERRITORIAL ARMY (RECONSTITUTION)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

139. Mr. C. S. TAYLOR,—To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will now make a statement on the future of the Territorial Army.

At the end of Questions—

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Bellenger): With the permission of the House I would like to answer Question 139. The hon. Member will appreciate that I cannot now make a complete and final statement about the reconstitution of the Territorial Army. I do, however welcome this opportunity to add to what has been said on the subject in the past.
The Territorial Army will be reconstituted on 1st January. It will have a triple role. Should there be another war the most immediate threat at the beginning will be from the air. Provision of A. A. Artillery of some kind will be essential. Our Regular Army is too small to undertake this task and this vital commitment will, therefore, fall largely on the Territorial Army. In the second place the Territorial Army will provide units needed by the Regular Army to convert this force into a properly balanced force ready for battle. Thirdly, the Territorial Army will provide a second line to the Regular Army and a basis on which our armies will expand in a war. My hon. Friends will realise that in order to carry out this role the Territorial Army will have to contain not only infantry divisions, but armoured formations, an airborne division and the necessary supporting corps and Army troops.
I hope that all formation commanders will be appointed by 1st January, and the majority of unit commanders by 1st February next year. A permanent staff will be provided on a larger scale than before the war, but even so permanent staff should not exceed 2 per cent. of the whole unit establishment. It is essential that this machine should be in place and working before recruits are taken on in any numbers. It is unlikely, therefore, that it will be possible to open general recruiting before 1st April next year, and I trust that keen volunteers will come forward in large numbers. We depend on them to build the framework of the Territorial Army. Eventually, as a result of

compulsory service, the Territorial Army will in addition contain a large compulsory element. These men will not, however, begin to reach Territorial Army units until late in the summer of 1950. In the interval the necessary accommodation will have to be provided and systems of training suitable both for the voluntary element and the compulsory element will have to be worked out.
It is intended that a large part of the administration of the Territorial Army shall continue to be entrusted to county associations who in the past have done such magnificent work in this field. Their duties will be complex and exacting and it has, therefore, been decided that all associations shall include representatives of all types of local government bodies, of trade unions, of employers' associations and of local education authorities, with due limits on the numbers of each. Certain minor changes in the field of selection and tenure of office of military members will be made, and room will be found for pre-service training organisations. There will in future be no restrictions as to rank or sex for appointment to membership.
I realise that what I have said will give hon. Members only a bare outline. This is not, however, an opportunity in which to go into detail and indeed a number of important points of detail have yet to be settled. I appreciate and value the interest the House takes in the Territorial Army and I can assure hon. Members that I will take every opportunity of keeping them informed of the progress which is made.

Mr. Eden: While we fully understand the right hon. Gentleman's difficulty in telling us more than he has up to date, because, as he said himself, it is important that the House, which is interested in this matter, should have full information, will he consider, when he is next in a position to make a statement, laying a White Paper at the same time, showing how much information is available up to that date, and perhaps the House could consider through the usual channels whether they require a Debate?

Mr. Bellenger: I am not in the position, as the House well knows, to give consideration to that point.

Mr. H. Hynd: Will the Secretary of State say from where he is going to


appoint unit commanders and other officers who are going to be appointed before general recruiting starts?

Mr. Bellenger: From the best material we can get and mainly from those who served in the war just finished.

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to bear in mind the possibility of allowing the unit which can fill its ranks from vountary people to do so and not impose upon it compulsory methods of recruitment?

Mr. Bellenger: I will consider that point but I am not in a position to give a definite answer at the moment.

Mr. C. S. Taylor: As this is obviously an important question and one from which we cannot get all the information by Question and answer, would it not be possible to have a debate on this subject?

Mr. Bellenger: The House will know, and the hon. Gentleman with his wide experience of this House knows very well, that that is a question for the Leader of the House.

Air-Commodore Harvey: To assist the recruiting campaign, will the Secretary of State make representations to see that volunteers get their annual leave in addition to the periods spent at camp?

Mr. Bellenger: I presume the hon. and gallant Member is referring to their week's holidays. That is not a question for me to answer.

Mr. Eden: As the Secretary of State has mentioned in his statement, a number of officers will be required as Regular officers. As I understand it, heavy commitments will be made on the Brigade of Guards for that purpose and, therefore, will the hon. Gentleman reconsider his decision about reducing the battalions of the Brigade of Guards?

Mr. Bellenger: My statement was only concerned with the Territorial Army. That is entirely a different question and that matter is under consideration now.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Will any degree of priority be given to the building of Territorial Army drill halls in those cases where building operations were suspended at the beginning of the war?

Mr. Bellenger: I should like to give some priority naturally, but I am afraid the housing demands of the civil population have got a much higher priority.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREATER LONDON PLAN (REPORT)

The following Questions stood upon the Order Paper:

167. Mr. HARE,—To ask the Minister of Town and Country Planning, when he will publish the recent report of the London Regional Planning Advisory Committee.

172. Mr. GEORGE WALLACE,—To ask the Minister of Town and Country Planning if he will now make a statement regarding the Report on the Greater London Plan of the Advisory Committee for London Regional Planning.

At the end of Questions—

The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): With the permission of the House I should like to answer Questions Nos. 167 and 172. The report is being published and will very shortly be on sale. Copies are available in the Library. The report discloses general acceptance by all the planning authorities of the main outlines of the Abercrombie Plan. The Government are indebted to the committee and to the hon. and Learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) for producing an agreed report in so short a time.
The Government welcome the Report, but there are certain reservations which I must make. The report proposes the accommodation, within the green belt ring, of nearly 160,000 more people than suggested in the plan. The Government have already declared their determination to safeguard this ring in order to stop the continued outward spread of London, and I shall be generally unable to accept these expansions. The road proposals in the report have been considered by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, in consultation with myself, and a plan will be issued in due course for the guidance of the Highway and Planning Authorities.
A memorandum will shortly be sent to planning authorities setting out in more detail my views on the report and drawing attention to certain particular problems which are being further investigated by my officers. Modifications to the


report may prove necessary from time to time as detailed surveys are carried out. Subject to these reservations, the Abercrombie Plan, together with the Advisory Committee's Report, can now be taken as the general framework for planning in the Greater London Area.

Mr. Gallacher: May I ask that when these statements are being made Ministers should change their method of standing at the Box in order that hon. Members behind can hear what is being said? [HON. MEMBERS: "Speak up."] Since Questions 167 and 172 have been answered' may I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether we cannot also have an answer to Questions 60, 69 and 70 which raise a very important point about finance?

Mr. Speaker: I have ruled several times that hon. Members cannot get up and say, "May my Question be answered because it has not been reached?" Otherwise, we should have no end to hon. Members making a similar request.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT STOPPAGE (MANCHESTER)

Mr. Erroll: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the general dislocation caused by the Manchester bus and tram strike, and the minor disorders which took place yesterday, he will intervene immediately to settle the dispute?

Mr. Isaacs: I understand that the corporation have made certain proposals which are to be considered at a mass meeting this afternoon. In the circumstances, hon. Members will appreciate that I would wish to avoid saying anything further.

Mr. Erroll: If these proposals are not accepted, will the Minister of Labour undertake to intervene to settle immediately a dispute which is causing grave public inconvenience?

Mr. Isaacs: I appreciate the grave public inconvenience and regret that the men concerned have not seen fit to acton the advice of their union leaders, but it must be made quite clear that the Ministry of Labour cannot intervene in these unofficial disputes and can only do so when asked by the trade unions and employers themselves.

PERSONAL STATEMENTS

Mr. Bowles: After the second Division yesterday some unopposed Business was taken, namely, the setting up of a Committee of several hon. Members to report on Statutory Rules and Orders. My name appeared on the Order Paper and also in the Votes and Proceedings of yesterday as one of those appointed to that committee, but I have noticed that it is not in the OFFICIAL REPORT. Last week, I was misrepresented on the Order Paper by being classed with certain hon. Gentlemen opposite; now my name has been omitted altogether and for a politician to be ignored is horrible. I have been looking at the matter and find that the first four names on the Order Paper, those of the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. Eric Fletcher), the hon. Member for North Islington (Dr. Haden Guest) and the hon. and learned Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hector Hughes), which followed my own have also been omitted from the HANSARD report.

Mr. Speaker: They are in the Votes and, of course, the Vote Paper is correct. I cannot imagine why they are omitted from HANSARD, and can only apologise for it and stand again in a white sheet. HANSARD is not authentic; the Vote Paper is the authentic record.

Mr. Maurice Webb: I should be obliged for your Ruling and advice, Mr. Speaker, on a personal matter in which I find myself in rather an embarrassing and annoying position. This morning when I read the Division Lists in the OFFICIAL REPORT I found, to my great surprise, that my name was not included among those who voted in the first Division yesterday against the Motion moved by the hon. Member for East Coventry (Mr. Cross-man). I find myself, against my will and wishes, among the abstentionists, which is a rather embarrassing position to be in. I do not quite know how it arose but, as you are aware, persons in this House with physical disabilities are, by long custom, forgiven the labour of going through the Lobby and are permitted to vote by proxy so long as they prove their presence in the House. I was here last night and undertook all I am required to undertake in that connection. I was quite visible and, on more than one occasion, even articulate, and the


right hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Whiteley) undertook to register my vote in that Division on my behalf. I gather that he did pass in my name although it is not on the list. I would like my constituents to know where I stood on this matter, and should welcome your advice. Is it impossible for my name to be added to the voting list now, or is there any other way in which it could be officially recorded that I was against this particular Amendment?

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid it is quite impossible now for the name to be added By some mischance it was not given in at the Table, and I think it will be understood that when a Division is over one cannot possibly add or delete names since one does not know whether the hon. Members concerned were even in the House I thought this was the best way of raising the matter because now the hon. Member has made it perfectly clear that a mistake was made and which way he would have voted. It has gone down in HANSARD, and I think it will no doubt be on record for the sake of his constituents.

SELECTION

Committee of Selection nominated:— Lieutenant-Commander Gurney Braithwaite, Mr Byers, Mr. Daggar, Mr. Dobbie, Sir Stanley Holmes, Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew, Mr McKinlay, Mr. Mathers, Mr Messer, Colonel Ponsonby and Sir Robert Young.—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

BILL PRESENTED

CIVIL RESTAURANTS BILL

"to empower local authorities to establish and carry on restaurants, and otherwise provide for the supply to the public of meals and refreshments, and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by Mr. Strachey; supported by Mr. Ede, Mr. Westwood and Mr. Bevan; to be read a Second time upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 8.]

Orders of the Day — KING'S SPEECH

DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS [Sixth Day]

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [12th November.]
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:
Most Gracious Sovereign.
We Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which You Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."— [Mr. Henry Usborne]

Question again proposed.

TRADE UNIONS (CLOSED SHOP)

3.48 p.m.

Mr. Frank Byers: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:
but humbly regret that the Gracious Speech contains no reference to the threat to the personal liberty of workers, members and non-members of trade unions by the enforcement of the closed shop in industry nor gives any indication of the policy of His Majesty's Government in this grave constitutional matter.
It must be some relief to the Government to find that on at least one day of this Debate, they are not being attacked solely from their own benches. I am grateful to you, Sir, for calling this Amendment which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends, and which refers to the closed shop. I am grateful because I believe that the closed shop raises grave constitutional issues, which are not well understood throughout the length and breadth of this country, and it is the duty of this House to attend to such issues at this time. I do not want to be misunderstood, for the Liberal Party has a very fine and honourable record of supporting the trade union movement. I do not move this Amendment in any spirit of hostility to that movement, and I hope I shall be given credit for that. I recognise the great work which the unions have done in the past and are doing today, and I also recognise the great struggles and sacrifices which have been made by their pioneers and leaders. I


genuinely think that we were trying to do a service to the workers and the trade unions in raising this matter today. I think so because no great movement can prosper in a free democracy, unless it has due regard for the personal liberty of the individual, and gives consideration to minorities.
There are two aspects of the closed shop. First, the refusal of union members to work with those who are not members of a union and, secondly, the demands which are now being made by the larger unions to have a monopoly of membership in a given field. As to the first, I admit quite frankly that I am impressed by the argument of the trade union member when he says "Those who benefit from the sacrifices which we make should pay the union dues." Against that argument, we must put the argument that the conscripted body is not as good as the voluntary body. Secondly, can a small majority of non-members do very much harm at the present time? I put those points forward as the two sides of the question. There is room for an honest difference of opinion and I think that we do differ. I stand on one side; many hon. Members take up their position on the other.
That would not be very important, were not it related to the wider aspect of the situation, as we see it today. Things have changed in the last few months. I am worried about the compulsion which is being exercised now, and is forcing men to join the trade union movement. It is the compulsion which exists when union members say, "We will not work with you unless you join. You must be sacked." I believe that 100 per cent. trade union membership is a legitimate aim. What would be the point of having a union if you did not intend to get 100 per cent. membership? But I say that the 100 per cent. membership must be achieved by persuasion, attraction and inducement, and not by compulsion. I am worried by this question of compulsion, and I do not think that I am alone in this matter. There are many trade union members who are worried by it too. In April, 1944, there was a Debate in this House to annul Regulation 1AA. That Regulation set out, in brief, to make arrangements whereby a man who suggested a strike or a stoppage outside the trade union movement could be sent to

prison for five years, but if he suggested a strike or a stoppage inside the trade union movement, it was legal.

Mr. Bowles: May I interrupt the hon. Member? It was a question of being in a properly convened trade union meeting, or outside a properly convened trade union meeting.

Mr. Byers: I accept that correction. I was trying to put the matter as briefly as possible and I was not being as specific as I should have been. I should like to quote from a speech which was made in that Debate, because I think it puts the question of compulsion in its proper perspective. This is the quotation:
If, on the other hand, you manage to get into a trade union meeting, you can agitate for a strike. We are now in the queer position that a man has to become a member of a trade union. He must have a licence to be free If you can persuade your branch official, or a trade union organiser, to convene a meeting, then, at that meeting, you can advocate a strike. But it you step outside the meeting into the street- and continue the same argument, you are put in gaol… There are over 13,000,000 workers in this country who are not in the trade unions. Not one of them will have any protection whatever under this Regulation. It may be said that they can all go into the unions. Of course they can, but are we now setting out to recruit trade union membership by threats of five years' penal servitude?
I would add also, by threats of men having to lose their jobs. The quotation goes on:
Is that what the Conservative Party has come to? It is an astonishing situation to see Consetvative Members giving special, legal protection not to trade unions but to trade union officials, because it is trade union officials who are invoking the law against their own members Do not let anybody on this side of the House think that he is defending the trade unions; he is defending the trade union official.—[OFFICIAL REPORT 28th April 1044: Vol. 399, c 1070.]
That speech was made by the right hon. Gentleman the present Minister of Health. I think I am in fairly good company on this occasion in being worried about the compulsion being exercised. As soon as compulsion or the threat of compulsion is exercised and the trade unionists say to a worker, "We will not work with you unless you join," trade union membership becomes a condition of employment.
That is the point. In other words, in order to retain a job a man must be a member of a trade union. The attitude


of the Government is that that is a matter which must be left to both sides of industry. I think I am reciting what the Lord President said in the speech which he made in the Debate on the Regulation. I understand that attitude, but is it not a fact that that attitude of neutrality leaves the trade unions free to go ahead and use any compulsion they care to in order to force people to join the trade unions? That is the constitutional issue which is at stake, and that is the reason why this matter has to be raised, in the interests of the union member just as much as in the interests of the non-union member. The non-union member who cannot get into a union loses his job, and the union member who loses his union membership loses his job also, and in some cases his livelihood. This is the battle of the worker against the trade union official in certain circumstances, and we have the right to say that we must stand up for the workers. I hope we shall not be charged with trying to make a ramp out of this matter. We feel genuinely and sincerely about it.
Do not let us forget that the held in which the closed shop is operating is increasing. With the repeal of the Trades Disputes Act and the further nationalisation of industry, the field is increasing. This is only the beginning. Since the repeal of the Trades Disputes Act, more than 30 local councils have taken the decision to operate the closed shop in this sense. I understand that the closed shop, in the sense of the closed union, will probably be applied to the coal mines when they are nationalised and the vesting date is reached. I believe that what is happening requires publicity and consideration. We are disturbed at what is happening. I think that many Members on the other side of the House are disturbed too. What are the repercussions of this situation, in which trade union membership becomes a condition of employment? First, there are 13,000,000 workers in this country who are not in a trade union, and there are 7,000,000 who are.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): indicated dissent.

Mr. Byers: The right hon. Gentleman denies that?

Mr. Isaacs: Yes.

Mr. Byers: But it is true that 7,000,000 are in the unions affiliated to the T.U.C. and that there are roughly 13,000,000, or certainly a very large number, who are not in the trade union movement. This job of joining a union is going to confront every one of those people individually. Therefore we ought to look for the repercussions. That will happen, if 100 per cent. union membership is the aim.
It is generally thought that there is little difficulty in joining a trade union. I thought there was little difficulty in joining a general union. I thought that was all right. I would like to spend a few minutes citing the case—it is not a very strong case—of a man named Mr. Throssel. He was a signals instructor in the Royal Corps of Signals, a sergeant, aged 44, with a wife and four children, and a good war record. He came back and was discharged from the Army, and he went to the Fulham electricity station as a substation attendant. He liked his job, and no complaints were ever made about the way he carried it on. Then the Trades Disputes Act was repealed. The council, which is a Labour council, passed a resolution in which they said that all employees of the council must join a union —not any particular union, but some union. All right. Mr. Throssel made verbal application to the Municipal and General Workers' Union. They said they thought it would be better for him to join the Electrical Trades Union. That was very reasonable. Mr. Throssel therefore made application to the Electrical Trades Union, and his application was refused. I will go into the reasons why it was refused in a minute. Immediately his application was refused, Mr. Throssel rang up the Municipal and General Workers' Secretary and said, "I could not get into the E.T.U. Will you take me?" and the answer was, "Certainly, of course, we will." Two days later Mr. Throssel was informed by the Municipal and General Workers' Union local secretary that he was sorry but he could not take him into the Municipal and General Workers' Union because the E.T.U. had brought pressure to bear on the union and said, "There will be a row if you take him in." Within a week Mr. Throssel had the sack. He had been earning £6 12S. a week and he is now working as a packer at G.E.C. at Kingsway, in London, at £4 10s. a week, the job consisting of


breaking down cases and hammering nails in.
We cannot stand idle when this sort of thing is happening. I took great care to substantiate this case, and I hope I shall not weary the House if I quote some letters, because I think they should be quoted. I put the whole of this matter to the Fulham borough council. This is the answer I got from the town clerk:
With reference to your letter of 29th ultimo concerning the dismissal of Mr. Throssel, a sub-station attendant in this council's Electricity Department, I have to inform you that the circumstances were reported by the borough electrical engineer to the Electricity Committee as follows: The employee had failed to join a trade union as required by a resolution of the council passed as its meeting on 17th July last, in spite of the fact that he had been warned immediately following the passing of the resolution in July that it would be necessary for him to do so. He bad, therefore, been given a week's notice terminating his employment on 14th September.
It is understood from the shop stewards that he had made an application to join the E.T.U., but for reasons which seemed sufficient to the trade union, they were compelled to refuse the application, and a further application to join the National Union of Municipal and General Workers was similarly refused. Employees who do not comply with the conditions of their employment are always liable to dismissal from the Council's service and this step was taken in the present instance.
The remarkable thing about that is that there is nothing wrong with it. It can be done. That is the danger. If we try to put a Question down, the Table is quite right in refusing it, and it is very difficult to see what the answer to this is.
I am not saying that Mr. Throssel is entirely in the right. I wrote to the National Secretary of the E.T.U., and he was good enough to send me a copy of a letter sent to somebody else about the same case. Here is a paragraph from that letter:
In this particular case it appears that on the candidate being admitted into the branch room for the purpose of answering questions, which is the usual procedure be was not in some cases prepared to reply. …
Unwise, I agree:
…The branch, however, had certain information regarding him which they were desirous either of confirming or rejecting but were unable to do this owing to his attitude. As a result, the candidate was not admitted.
It is interesting to note what took place in this interview. It took five minutes. Mr. Throssel was asked if he had done anything to join the union voluntarily

before the council passed their resolution. I think that is irrelevant. The answer was, "No, he had not." Perhaps that was an unwise answer. Perhaps he should have cooked something up in order to get in. It is a terrible thing if one has to do that sort of thing in this country. Mr. Throssel was then asked what part-time employment he was undertaking. He replied, "Do I have to answer that question?", and the answer was "No." He said, "Then I prefer not to." The chairman then turned to the other members and said, "Any questions?" One member said, "Will you definitely confirm that you did nothing whatever to join the union voluntarily before the council passed the resolution?" Mr. Throssel said, "No, I did not."
The important point about this case is that Mr. Throssel is working as a night telephonist as a part-time job. He considers, rightly or wrongly, that he is responding to the call of the President of the Board of Trade and the Lord President of the Council for more output. He is working for the Postmaster-General in the Kensington telephone exchange. He may be right or wrong, but that is what he is doing. The trade union committee on the other hand, dislike his having a part-time job. I could respect that attitude in the years between the wars when there was unemployment, but there is a prima faciecase that they may be wrong now, and that we do want increased output. Therefore, we have the odd situation in which Mr. Throssel is probably right, but the trade union rules are probably out of tune with modern circumstances, and as a result Mr Throssel cannot get into the union and is therefore dismissed from his job. These matters must be inquired into. We cannot just stand idle while these things are happening.
The third point is the pressure that was brought to bear on the Municipal and General Workers' Union by the Electrical Trades Union. That sort of thing is going on, and I can quote the case of Mr. Mott, of the Enfield arms factory. The Amalgamated Engineering Union and another union are trying to get him dismissed. The employers are standing up for Mr. Mott. No approach has ever been made to Mr. Mott to get him to join a union. When he inquired whether he could get in he was told that he could not These two unions have circularised all other trade union


branches telling them, "Mott must not be accepted until this case is finished." That is not justice, and if that is the sort of thing that is going on, we must look into it very carefully—

Mr. Frederick Lee: Can the hon. Gentleman give any detail of the reasons adduced for not admitting Mr. Mott to membership? It is quite unfair to imply that a union will not accept a man for membership unless the reasons they put forward for refusing his application are given.

Mr. Byers: As the hon. Member knows, it is extremely difficult to get at the actual facts of these cases because, as I hope to show, there is no way in which one can force the unions to divulge the information. However, the hon. Member must agree that it seems wrong that where no approach has been made to a man to join a union, and where it is sought to have him discharged on the ground that he will not join, a union should take steps to see that he cannot join There must be something wrong in that. What the Minister of Labour has, in fact, said in the case of a man who gets into a union, or who is a union member already is, "It is your trade union; we are satisfied that it gives you all the protection you need, and if you do not like it, you must accept the consequences." That is the attitude. Since membership is a condition of employment, the consequence is loss of a job What did the Minister of Health say in the same Debate on this subject? May I make one more quotation:
I want to ask my trade union friends this question It Parliament says to the citizen, 'Here is your trade union, we are satisfied that it gives you all the protection you need, and if you try to settle grievances in any other way we will send you to prison for five years,'..
He might as well have said, "You will lose your job,' because the principle is the same:
…is not Parliament, therefore, under an obligation to see that the facilities of union are made available to every member of a union? In other words, ought not Parliament to consider all the rules of the unions?
He went on to say:
La busman or anybody else goes to an official with a complaint, and that official takes no notice, and does not attend to his grievances, what is his remedy? He has to try to alter the rules of art organisation of perhaps over 1,000,000 members. What pro-

tection has he got? Has not Parliament an obligation to see that the rules are so framed so as to give facilities in the union? Does the Trades Union Congress want all the rules of every union in the country to be submitted to Parliament and be revised? Of course not. We should insist on the reconsideration of all union rules before we dare hand over the citizens to the protection of these unions"—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 28th April, 1944; Vol. 399, c. 1073.]
That was the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health. The important point—I do not want to be misunderstood—is that the trade unions are constitutionally irresponsible in the sense that they are not responsible to Parliament. There is no Minister responsible for the trade unions in this House; there is no charter or Statute which governs the rules of the unions, and they are not responsible, it the closed shop, which makes it a condition of employment that you must be a member of a union, is accepted, you are at the same time forcing people to become members of a voluntary organisation which is not responsible to anyone.

Mr. Bowles: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to intervene once again. He is making a very interesting speech, but it all seems biased against trade unions. Has he not heard of the closed shop among employers?

Mr. Byers: If the hon. Member would give me credit for realising that, he would realise that we are fighting the closed shop among employers just as much as the closed shop among workers. What is more, we have an Amendment down about it. If I were to state the case for it in this Debate, I should be called to Order by Mr. Speaker, quite rightly, but I hope the hon. Member will note that this shows the interest in the question in this House, and I hope the Government will give us a day to debate the closed shop in the other case also.
The point I want to make is that if the actions and the rules of the trade unions were reasonable and were brought up to date, and if we knew that justice was assured and there was a right of appeal, there might not be any need for Parliament to satisfy itself Mr. Throssel had no right of appeal; he did not know where to go, so he took the matter to his Member of Parliament. I will say this, and here I think the hon. Gentleman will agree with me, that the same principle of Parliament satisfying itself should apply to the Bar, and to medicine, and to all those


other closed shops, if there is any demand for it on the part of citizens, or any suggestions that the rules which operate in the case of the Bar, medicine and those other closed shops are unjust and are depriving the citizen of some of his rights. Let us inquire into them. When trade union membership becomes a condition of employment, it has a statutory repercussion. You cannot get unemployment benefit, so I am told, because you cannot fulfil the conditions of employment. It may not be possible for you to fulfil the conditions of employment because the union would not have you, and that wants looking into.
I am worried about another aspect of the question. What happens when the unions get scared of unemployment and close their books? That will be a headache for the Government. I am also worried about this point. The unions now are exacting very high entrance fees. [An HON. MEMBER: "Which unions?"] Here is a letter which I have received today. The writer says:
I am employed by the L.P.T.B. and am a fully paid up member of a registered union. On Tuesday 12th November, 1946, I was handed a letter by a representative of the Board notifying me that if I did not join the Transport and General Workers' Union by Tuesday 19th November 1946 my services would be dispensed with. This after 18 years' service with the Board, and incidentally I am a junior servant in comparison with other members who have received similar notices. Notwithstanding the viciousness of this whole proceeding, in the interests of my family and my livelihood I applied for membership of the Transport and General Workers' Union, and was informed 1 could join subject to an entrance fee of £5, no consideration being given to the fact that I was already a full union member. The amount was not, as far as I can gather, set by Transport House, but was left to local autonomy. A typical example of how one working class man is played off against another.
The Ministry of Labour can have that note.

Mr. Jack Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me—

Mr. Byers: I really must get on with my speech.

Mr. McGhee: Was this man in arrears?

Mr. J. Jones: I want to try to help the hon. Member if I can. The entrance fee is charged when a member first joins a union, and in no case is it £5. I defy contradiction on that point. But where

a union is asked to take the transfer of a person who is already a member of a union, and who seeks to transfer his obligations from that union to another in regard to superannuation, death benefits and so on. it may well be £5—and £5 well spent.

Mr. Byers: Then it is a remarkable thing that 60 men who are transferred from one union to another should all be exactly the same amount in arrears. I do not see how they can be. If one man was £4 17s. 6d. and another £5—

J. Jones: The, hon. Member said "entrance fee."

Mr. Byers: I suggest that it is a fine, or an, entrance fee, exacted by a body which has no constitutional responsibility whatsoever.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. J. Jones: That is wrong.

Mr. Byers: I suggest also that men might be thrown out of their unions for various reasons. The introduction of contracting out, has made a very great difference,to what is happening in the trade union movement. It takes a great deal of moral courage now to contract out, if you know that in doing so you are marking yourself out as a man who does not agree—[HON. MEMBERS: "How many are there?"] If hon. Members do not believe me, perhaps I may quote another letter. No, I think I will send it to the Minister of Labour.

Hon. Members: Read it.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: They do not like it; let them have it.

Mr. J. Jones: Who is to say that the letter is the truth?

Mr. Byers: I suggest that if even only one individual is suffering it is worth looking into. Contracting out, when it means that you mark yourself out as being different in your political views, from other members of the union may, I do not say will, cause a man to be discharged from the union—of course it will not—but will be a black mark against him. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Trade union membership has been made a condition of employment: how many Germans in Germany had to join the Nazi Party be-


cause it was a condition of employment? That is what is being shown in the deNazincation courts now. That is the story which is being told daily: "I did not want to join, but I had to, to get a job." It has a very similar ring to what we hear in these cases, though I am not suggesting that the trade unions are Fascist—of course I am not. [An HON. MEMBER: "Then why rake it up?"]If hon. Members cannot see the difference, really we might as well not have this House at all.
I am not going to deal with the second aspect of the closed shop, the monopoly union. I leave that to the hon. Member who is to second this Amendment. But, I do suggest that men are how being told that they must join a trade union, in other words, trade union membership has become a condition of employment. The field of the closed shop is increasing; unions are not responsible to this House or to anyone, and there are 13 million workers of this country, who will have this problem of joining a union to confront at some time in the future—not tomorrow, but at some time, because the unions aim, at 100 per cent. membership, so it must confront them. There is, no right of appeal against a refusal to take a man as a member of a union, at least I have not been able to find one. "Men who cannot join a union Jose their means of livelihood, and in the case of a miner, where there is a closed union, he loses his whole career, because' he would be de barred from working in the mines without a membership card, and therefore he would have to change his whole, mode of life. The unions can withdraw their membership card from members; 'and Parliament cannot intervene.
I believe I have said enough to prove that this is a grave constitutional issue which affects the personal liberty of the individual. If these practices continue and become more widespread, Parliament must satisfy itself that justice can still be done to the individual. The Government cannot be neutral in this matter, because by being neutral they are giving a positive sanction to the injustices which are being, perpetrated at the moment. On the Trades Disputes Act we demanded a new and up to date charter for the trade union movement. I think we were right. The 1913 Act is a great deal out of date.
Since 1913 great things have happened. It is no good saying that be-

cause it was right in 1913, it is right now. We in this party are progressive. We have been particularly worried about the closed shop in relation to nationalised industries, and public authorities. If the closed shop is applied in its narrow sense, it makes a monopoly union, and in that sense we advocate the setting up of a Royal Commission to inquire into it. Let us have a Royal Commission to examine the closed shop in relation to our modern economic and industrial life. Let us see what can be done to guarantee prosperity for the unions, while safeguarding the liberty of the individual, and the rights of minorities.
I believe an exposition of those facts would be a good thing. I believe that legislation may not be necessary, but let us have a Report from such a Commission. If legislation is the answer, I trust the unions enough to say to them "Collaborate with the Government in bringing forward a new and up to date charter, which will guarantee the personal liberty of the individual, and the rights of minorities." They can do that, and this House can satisfy itself whether this is right or wrong. I believe that is the spirit in which we ought to approach, this matter. When we come to divide this House tonight, this will not be a vote against the trade unions, but a vote in the interest of—[An HON. MEMBER: "Scabs."] That word does no one any good—worker, trade union official, or Member of Parliament. I would be ashamed to use it. A vote for this Amendment tonight will show that we recognise that the trade union movement has reached a critical moment in its history, and that we want to see that it takes the right turning, so that it will be strengthened and so that it can go on in the future, as in the past, representing the working people of this country.

4.22 p.m.

Mr. W. J. Brown: I beg to second the Amendment.
It is not often that I ask for indulgence, but, within the limits of restraint which the House finds it possible to impose upon itself, I would ask for indulgence today. I am feeling extremely unwell and would, if I could, avoid speaking. But I regard it as my duty to speak. What I say is bound to be controversial. Therefore I want at the beginning to limit the area


of controversy as much as I can, and above all to eliminate the possibility of unnecessary misunderstanding. If I cam do that, then the subsequent argument can be directed to the issue, rather than to misunderstandings about the issue.
So I begin by saying, as a trade unionist of some 30 years' standing, and as a trade union leader for most of that time, that I have no use whatever for the non-unionist. I think he is a fool to himself. I think he is a liability to his workmates. And I think he can be made a tool of bad employers. Therefore, I have no use for him. Nor is it true, although it has been suggested as true, that I am in favour of breakaway or splinter unions—[HON. MEMBERS: "What about 1937?"]—May I deal with 1937? There is nothing I want to dodge here. Hon. Members will have straightforward talk from me, and I shall welcome straightforward talk back from them. Whenever I have been consulted by workmen, I have invariably given the reply that they should not leave their union unless they have exhausted all possibilities within the union of securing a remedy for the grievances raised. If I am reminded of 1936 and 1937, let me say that when the London busmen first came to me, and told me of their troubles, my reply to them was exactly the same, "Do not leave your union until you have exhausted all possibilities inside it of remedying the grievances of which you complain." If, subsequently, they left the union, it was because they found they could not secure redress within it. That is a point I will come to later on in the ordinary course of developing my remarks. I hope I have made it utterly plain—I can make it no plainer—that I have no use for the non-unionist, and I am not in favour of breakaway unions, although I am in favour—and this is vital—of preserving the right to break away.
While I want to support this Amendment on many grounds, I want first to support it on exclusively trade union grounds. I want to demonstrate that the closed shop is a bad thing, not merely for Britain, but for the trade union movement. I hold that it is bad, first, because it promotes unhealthy trade unionism; secondly, because it promotes slack trade unionism, and, thirdly, because it can conceivably promote corrupt trade unionism. I would like to say a word about each of those contentions. The moral authority of a leader of a trade

union rests on the fact that he is voluntarily chosen by free men to represent them. Just as soon as the element of conscription is introduced into membership of a trade union, the moral authority deriving from free selection of leaders by free men disappears. If I, as a representative of my own union, go to a Government Department about some trouble of theirs, and I claim to represent 130,000 men, the Department knows that everyone of those 130,000 is a volunteer, and not one of them a conscript If we change 85 per cent. or 90 per cent. volunteers to 100 per cent. compelled, we may add 10 per cent., or 15 per cent., to our membership, but we would subtract 50 per cent. from the moral authority we represent.
The closed shop makes for slack trade unionism. I do not need to argue at great length with my trade union friends, that one union can differ from another as one star differs from another in magnitude—[An HON. MEMBER: "In glory"]."In glory"—the word is appropriate. If the closed shop becomes established in Britain, "the glory will have departed." We know, in the trade union movement, that a union may be a combination of free men, a powerful, vigorous, combination of free men, to establish collectively the rights that workmen are individually impotent to assert. That is what a trade union ought to be. But we know that a trade union may be more than a "goose-club," for the collection of contributions, and the distribution of benefits. At its worst, it may be an instrument for handing workmen, body and soul, defencelessly, over to the employer. If anyone questions that, I would remind them of the debates we had in the Trades Union Congress years ago on the subject of Havelock Wilson's Seamen's Union. That was denounced as industrial conscription of the worst possible order. A trade union might be either of these things, and, what is more, a trade union might be each at different times. The unions, like every other form of human organisation, progress and retrogress, and there is no law which exempts them from the operation of the influences which affect human society in general. I say that the one way to ensure getting slack trade unionism, is to remove, not merely competition, but every possibility of competition. And it is that which the closed shop does For the whole essence


of the closed shop is that in order to follow his employment a man must join and remain a member of either a union, or a particular union, or a union of a given type or character, such as a union affiliated to the T.U.C.
I shall be told that where there is slackness in a trade union, and there is slackness in trade unions in Britain, as in every other form of organisation, it can be remedied from within, and that the leadership can be changed from within. That is a fair argument, to which I should like to address myself for a moment. Where one is dealing with a comparatively small union, I think that is largely true. The membership can, if it wants, compel from within changes, either in tempo, tactics or in leadership. But it is also true that the larger a union becomes, the more difficult that is, because when one comes to face industrial octopuses such as the Transport and General Workers' Union, and the Municipal and General Workers, Union, with memberships of a million or so, the only appeal for members is to the biennial conference. That is a conference held every two years, in the case of the Transport and General Workers' Union—I am not sure about the Municipal and General Workers' Union. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is the same."] I was not sure.
When the opportunity does come, the proceedings of the conference are governed by what is known as the card vote. The card vote is ostensibly a democratic thing. But actually the card vote can be the most undemocratic thing under heaven. I have seen it so worked I remember the days when I used to go to the Labour Party Conference. It used to be axiomatic then—I do not know if it still is—that if one found coal, cotton and transport with the platform, the rest of the conference did not matter. It might be one or two others as well as coal, cotton and transport, but that was the idea. How often have I seen the late Mr. Ramsay MacDonald standing on one side at the conference, beckoning to Bob Smillie, Jim Thomas or the cotton leaders, and after a few minutes' whispered exchanges the conference knew how the card vote was going. That may not be admitted publicly, but there is no man who speaks of his own knowledge, who would deny it privately.

Mr. Proctor: Does the hon. Member assert that the vote of the N.U.R. is decided by the General Secretary, whether past or present, in collusion with the platform, and not by the delegates representing the union at the conference?

Mr. Brown: I have spoken of a particular leader of the railwaymen, an extremely able and astute leader. If one told Mr. Jim Thomas that he needed the sanction of his Executive his reply, as I remember it, would probably have been an extremely hearty guffaw. However that may be, what I am asserting is that the larger the union, the more difficult it is to secure redress at an annual conference, with the block vote of many other sections being swung against the section immediately affected, and in the last resort, if not only competition, but the very possibility of it is destroyed, a premium is put upon slackness rather than upon efficiency. I want to see a strong and efficient trade union movement in Britain.
I will now deal with the third point that it may lead to corrupt trade unionism. I yield to no one in my admiration for the trade union movement in Britain as a whole, and the quality of its leadership. I regard its leadership as the best of any trade union movement in the world, and that by a very long way I have seen something of the trade union movement in Australia, in parts of Europe and in America. I say without hesitation that that is true of the trade union leadership in Britain taken as a whole But we know, do we not?—with Shakespeare:
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds Makes ill deeds done!
And if one goes to the place where the closed shop is most freely operated, the United States of America, one will find instance after instance there, of corruption which I am perfectly certain the English trade union movement, while it is free, would never dream of tolerating for a moment. If hon. Members doubt me, let them consult the representatives of the T.U.C, who occasionally drift over there in the capacity of fraternal delegates, and talk off the record" when they come back. Therefore, I say that for these three reasons I think the closed shop is bad for the trade unions.
Now may I deal for a moment with the arguments advanced by the T.U.C. At the recent Brighton Conference the


General Council took a somewhat unusual course—I think it was a good one—of circulating what was in effect a White Paper on this subject. I read it with great interest. I could not conceive how the General Council could fail to think clearly and fundamentally upon this issue, and if they did, it seemed to me that they must dissociate themselves from the closed shop. Indeed, in the opening sentences of this document they begin by saying that they do not like the closed shop "in the American sense." But the closed shop is a closed shop, whether in the German, American, British or any other sort of sense. It has a connotation. It means making a man's right to follow his job dependent upon his being a member of a particular organisation or type of organisation. They go on, having repudiated the closed shop in the American sense, whatever that may be, to express approval of it in relation to three categories of people; first, non-unionists, men not members of any union; second, members of "splinter" or breakaway unions; and third, members of unions which are not affiliated to the T.U.C. I do not like the non-unionist, but I would not operate the closed shop against him. I do not like breakaway unions, unless there is no alternative. And my own organisation is affiliated to the T.U.C. I would say that if the closed shop is to be approved in relation to these three areas of people something like 12 or 13 million work people in the country are covered. I never hesitate to take on battles which are a little too big for me, but it would never occur to me to lead an army of 6,700,000 people to declare war on 13,000,000. I regard that declaration of war as excessively comprehensive.
I now invite the House to notice that the Trades Union Congress is not only an industrial body. It is, to a very large degree, a political body as well. Its agenda—I am not criticising this, but we have to recognise the fact—will cover everything from China to Peru, from Poles to the Control Commission in Germany, and so forth. It claims the right to speak politically as well as industrially. When we are dealing with political affiliations we provide a contracting-out clause, so that if I happen to be a Tory, and I do not want to be affiliated to the Labour Party, I fill up a contracting-out form. I rather agree with

hon. Gentlemen opposite that there is not much bones made about that. A man can get a form and fill it up. A little moral persuasion against this may be exercised, but normally it does not go beyond that. However, when we come to affiliation to the T.U.C, there is no contracting-out at all. Affiliation is made to a body which is political, but there is no "contracting-out" provision. If the closed shop was carried to its fullest extent, what should we find? We should find 21,000,000 people in Britain, compulsorily members of trade unions, compulsorily affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, which is political, and which, in turn, is a partner of the Labour Part. In other words, if this thing is carried 1o its logical conclusion, we will get all the wage earners of Britain—

Mr. Percy Morris: May I put this point? Would not the hon. Member agree that trade unions affiliating to the Trades Union Congress and to the Labour Party, pay only on the degree of affiliation of their membership?

Mr. Brown: No. That does not apply in the case of affiliation to the Trades Union Congress. I think probably everybody on the opposite side of the House is as familiar with these rules as I am. In the case of the Labour Party, payment is made upon the membership not "signed out." In the case of the Trades Union Congress payment is made upon the total paying membership. That is a standing rule, and I am not arguing with it. I am attempting to point out that if the closed shop is carried through to its full extent in the areas where the T.U.C. favour the closed shop, then 21,000,000 wage earners in Britain will be compulsory members of trade unions affiliated to the T.U.C. which, in turn, forms part of the political Labour movement. If that is not in principle—not in intention, I do not wish to be misunderstood—a close imitation of the Nazi Labour Front or the Fascist corporations, then I do not know what is.
And now may I remind my comrades opposite that there is nothing immutable in human affairs. They have seen, as I have in my lifetime, a very considerable penetration of the trade union machine by the Communist Party.

Mr. Gallacher: The same old story.

Mr. Brown: If I had mentioned that that penetration had been trivial, the hon. Gentleman would have regarded that as a criticism of the efficiency of his party. Hon. Members opposite know it is true that, in varying degrees, in different parts of the movement, the penetration has been very considerable.

Mr. Gallacher: That story is greyheaded.

Mr. Brown: At least it is not bald.

Mr. Gallacher: It is about time it went into honourable retirement. Why does the hon. Member want to bring in that kind of nonsense?

Mr. Brown: I hope I am not putting it unfairly in any way when I say that there is Communist penetration, and that some unions already are in the grip of the Communist Party. There are possibilities of a conflict between the Communist Party and the Labour Party. Does anyone deny that?

Mr. Gallacher: Yes.

Mr. Brown: I hope I am not being unfair to the House, and I hope hon. Members will not be unfair to me.

Mr. Gallacher: The hon. Gentleman is very concerned about the Labour Party.

Mr. Brown: I am trying to argue a serious issue. If the hon. Gentleman had been here from the beginning of the Debate, I do not think he would be interrupting me now. I have tried to make this a hard objective argument. Whether or not I have succeeded is another matter. Hon. Members have the right to reply to me but, at least, I ought to be able to state my views. There is a possibility of a political clash between the Communist Party and the Labour Party. If that ever comes, we may see in Britain the Communist-dominated trade unions getting together into one group, and the Labour Party-dominated trade unions in another group. The closed shop may be all right when it adds to one's political supporters: But one may find it very far from being all right if its effect is to strengthen the political opponents who have already passed the death sentence upon one. I think hon. Members opposite would be wiser if they eliminated the closed shop now and did not wait until that situation arose.
There is one field where the T.U.C. do not favour the closed shop. They do not favour it as directed by one affiliated organisation against another. That was made quite clear in the "White Paper" at Brighton. But it is a general experience that while a union or a movement may wish to limit itself in the degree to which it carries through a principle, events sometimes carry the principle further Here is an extract from an evening paper published a day or two ago:
Because ten electricians of the British Plaster Board Factory at Erith, Kent, do not belong to the Transport and General Workers Union, all work at the factory, which is producing urgently needed building materials, has stopped since Thursday night. The manager said today he had no idea when work would be resumed. The ten electricians are members of the Electrical Trades Union.
Trade union members on the opposite side of the House will know that the Electrical Trades Union is a very old established craft union. It is an example of the oldest type of union in Britain, the craft union, which organises men by reference to what they do, in whatever industry they do it. They get the woodworkers together in one crowd, the electricians in another, the engineers in the third, and so forth. Here is a case of the closed shop being operated by a general union against a craft union. Hon. Members opposite will agree with me when I say that, of all the unions in Britain, the general unions are about the most predatory of the lot. In my recollection, there have been more rows at the Trades Union Congress about "poaching" by the general unions than there have been about anything else. I ask hon. Members to consider the situation—

Mr. Robens: In view of the fact that the hon. Gentleman is making a great point of this newspaper cutting, will he say whether he has proved the facts, and whether or not that newspaper cutting is a true reflection of the actual position, because our experience is that we never get the full picture of a trade union dispute in the newspapers?

Mr. Brown: If the question is put to me specifically, "Have you, in the interval between Saturday and now, gone down to Erith and checked up on these facts?", the answer is, "No, I have not." I quoted from a newspaper, as we all do. But hon. Members opposite cannot get away from the essential fact. For


example, this issue rose some weeks ago at a colliery in a Durham village. There was a speech by the secretary of the Durham Miners Association, a very fine organisation, and the secretary announced that, when nationalisation came about, if four men who were operating the shafts— the winding engineers, I think they are called—did not join the Miners Federation, then the whole of the coalmining industry in that area would come to a standstill.

Mr. Murray: It was not a question of joining.

Mr. Brown: No. They were in another organisation. [HON. MEMBERS: "A breakaway."] It is so easy to classify a union which one does not like as a "breakaway." Is not the party opposite historically a breakaway union? It is a breakaway from the Liberal Party. If I may say so, with all the good will in the world and with very great respect, there are occasions when hon. Members on those benches ought to be grateful to the "splinters." The "splinters" last night—another breakaway union. Hon. Members ought to be grateful to them. I say, therefore, that anybody who seriously thinks about the future of the trade union movement, with its combination of the craft unions, the industrial unions, and the general unions, ought to be extremely chary of having anything to do with the closed shop. In America, a very large proportion indeed of the total number of industrial disputes are not about industrial conditions, but are inter-union jurisdictional disputes between one organisation and another. I can foresee just as fatal results coming to the trade union movement in England as have already come to the trade union movement in America.
We are told that we can trust the unions not to exercise their powers unworthily. I want to quote one case which comes to me today:
Up to the moment, about 40 men and women have been discharged rather than join the Transport and General Workers' Union in the organisation of London Transport. The Transport and General Workers' Union have now become extremely vicious, notably with the imposition of a £5 fine, knowing full well that, in a good many cases, the men have not got £5 with which to pay. The latest case is that of a man at the Hanwell Central Bus Garage who is a member of the Passenger Workers' Union He decided to join the Transport and General Workers' Union rather

than be dismissed. He was told that he would have to pay £1 of the £5 fine immediately and a contribution of 8d. Evidently, the 8d. is the real entrance fee. He was then told that he would have to pay 9s. 8d. every week until the rest of the fine was paid. He has 33 years' service with the Board and its associated companies, and an absolutely clean record. He informed them that he was unable to pay this amount, and offered a lesser sum, say 5s. On the following day, the chairman, secretary and a delegate called at the man's private house and asked the man if he would let them look at his card. He handed them the card, they looked at it, and then said, 'You are not a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union and you will be sacked.' On the following day, he was sent for by the employer and discharged with a week's money in lieu of notice after 33 years in the service.
[HON MEMBERS: "Shame."] I do not care what anybody else says about this; I say it is damnable and outrageous tyranny! I would like, if I may, and I hope I am not keeping the House too long—

Mr. Frank McLeavy: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us whether he has confirmed the statements he has made?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): We cannot have two hon. Members on their feet at the same time.

Mr. Brown: I have quoted these statements, as all hon. Members occasionally quote, but I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman whether the statements are correct or not. The document is signed by "Frank Snelling, Secretary."

Mr. Blackburn: Would the hon. Gentleman describe that gentleman as an uninterested person?

Mr. Brown: I have dealt with this matter from the trade union point of view. Now I would like to deal with it in. a wider connotation. I agree with the hon. Member who moved this Amendment that there is a deep constitutional issue involved in this problem. It is of the essence of the British Constitution that, under it, a man is "free to live by no man's leave, underneath the law." Provided that he observes the law, a man may go hither and thither on his lawful occasions, do his work, establish a home, bring up a family and so forth: But here we have another body under the State which says: "Though you observe all the laws, you shall not be free to work save by our permission, and that permission will be conditional upon your being either


a member of a union, or a particular union, or a, union of a given character." It is true that there are other examples of the closed shop. There are the cases of the medical profession and the Jaw, but, at least, there is some sort of argument there. [Laughter.]Well, I was going to say that there are two points about those closed shops. The first is that they are established by Acts of Parliament; the second is that they are directed primarily to safeguarding the standards of proficiency in medicine and law and so on. Here is a case where no question of proficiency comes into the question at all, where Parliament has not approved the procedure, and where, I venture to say. Parliament would not approve it if it was brought before the House. That seems to me to be a very grave constitutional issue.
It may be that the time will come when the State will lay down, by law, that a man should be a member of a trade union. But I warn hon. Members opposite of the results which would follow as the corollary of such action. One will be that the State must define the boundaries of the unions. Another will be that it must safeguard the terms of membership of unions. Another will be that it must safeguard the rights of persons within the unions. I cannot imagine Parliament doing this without satisfying itself on these matters. And I would remind the House of the advice given by Samuel Gompers, of the American Federation of Labour, whose view was that the unions should keep away from the embrace of the State at all costs. I used to think that he was wrong, but, the longer I live, the more I am inclined to think that he was right.

Mr. O'Brien: As the hon. Gentleman has mentioned Mr. Gompers, he will remind the House that the closed shop originated in America was a closed shop against the unions, and that a closed shop in this country is an open shop for the unions.

Mr. Brown: I am much obliged for that gratifying but slightly elementary piece of tuition. At any rate, it has nothing to do with my argument. Lastly, I come to the position of the Government. Although I have had some clashes with the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour in this House, I beg to assure him that I have nothing but affection for him. "Whom the Lord loveth, He also

chasteneth." I am not out gunning for the Minister of Labour. I am out to fight what I regard as a vicious principle. And it so happens that the right hon. Gentleman is the head of the Ministry which is concerned with it. I tried to get from the right hon. Gentleman many months ago a statement of Government policy. The first reply I got, given with a bland air of seraphic innocence which would have done credit to a heathen Chinee, was that he did not know what the closed shop was, but that, if I would define it, he would give me a proper answer.

Mr. Isaacs: If the hon. Member will allow me, I did not say that I did not know what it was. I wanted to know what the hon. Member meant by it.

Mr. Brown: At any rate, I was asked to define it more closely, and I did so in fine, nervous, Civil Service English. Again, the right hon. Gentleman failed to tell us what the Government policy was, and, by an astonishing accident, which was not the fault of the right hon. Gentleman, this Question was not reached. When I rose and asked Mr. Speaker if the House could enable the Minister to give me a reply, the right hon. Gentleman showed a coyness which was only equalled by his earlier innocence. But when, under the joint pressure of the right hon. Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) and myself, he was about to communicate with us, he was practically forcibly restrained by the Lord President of the Council. As far as I can gather, we have reached the stage when a division of functions has been arranged between Ministers. It is the function of the Minister of Labour to say "No" to inquiries. It is the function of the Lord President to say, "We want an inquiry," when it suits him. And it is the function of the Home Secretary to refute the results of an inquiry when they appear to him to be the wrong ones. We got the answer later. The answer was that this, in the Government's view, was a matter to be settled by industry and not by the Government. All I want to say about that is that there are circumstances in which a failure to act is itself an act. There are circumstances in which failure to protect defenceless men is to become an accomplice of the men oppressing them. I assert that, when facts of the kind that have been evinced in this Debate are brought to this House, for a


Government to say that they have nothing to say, is an act of unprecedented abdication. While we may have to tolerate abdications in certain circumstances, we do not want abdications by Governments when issues of this kind are concerned.
Therefore, all this leads us to press, not for legislation, but for an inquiry. As the Lord President said the other day, we have had inquiries into nurses' pay, inquiries into this, that and the other, and there is no harm in our having one more inquiry in that case into the Press. I say that there is no harm in having an inquiry into the closed shop. Believe me, I have not told one-tenth of the facts that could have been stated this afternoon. Therefore, this Amendment calls upon the House—for when Governments abdicate, Parliaments must act—in face of the abdication of the Government, to demand the appointment of a Royal Commission on this matter, so that we can get at the facts, the principles, the implications and the probable outcome of the closed shop. And then, in the light of that material, we can make up our minds on what it is best for this Parliament to do in relation to that grave issue.

5.3 p.m.

Mr. Awbery: A great deal of heat has been engendered in this Debate on the closed shop. So far, we have heard very little from the trade unionists' point of view of the closed shop. I am glad that the question has been raised today because it gives us an opportunity to clear up a certain amount of misunderstanding and general misconception which has arisen in this House and in the country. It has also given some hon. Members an opportunity of proving, by the convincing power of their oratory, what the closed shop means. They have attempted, as the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) has just said, to raise the question on a number of occasions. At least half a dozen Questions on the subject have been put down on the Order Paper; the matter was to be raised on the Adjournment, and now we are dealing with it as an Amendment to the Gracious Speech.
We, as trade unionists, welcome this discussion. There is nothing that we desire to hide; we want to be perfectly straightforward and absolutely frank as to where we stand on the question of the closed shop. With all due respect to hon.

Members of the Liberal Party, in our opinion, this is an attempt to kindle the torch of disunity among the ranks of the trade unions of this country. I regret that the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) has seen fit to join the "Rugby team"; there is one consolation that his doing so has brought it up to the required number. They believe that they have made a bewildering and disturbing discovery—that the closed shop, as they understand it, is a threat to the personal liberty of the individual. This discovery appears to upset their sense of proportion and to make things appear to them what they are not.
The Liberal Party have developed a fear complex unworthy of their great tradition and unworthy of this great nation. They have recently been trying to disturb the nerves and the judgment of the people by crying out against the iniquity of the closed shop. By doing so, they are insulting the intelligence of the people and the intelligence of the trade unions. During the past two months, they have tried to make the issue of the closed shop a frightening bogy. We have heard something of it before in the Red Letter and the financial crisis. It has been a determined attempt to manipulate public opinion against the trade unions. Some hon. Members who have spoken have shown an extraordinary energy on the question of the closed shop during the past few months. I do not think it is necessary, and neither do I think it is desirable, that this House should examine the reason for this extraordinary interest and energy. At the same time, I think that they have, to a great extent, shown a disregard of the facts of the case, and have approached the matter with a surge of passion. It is necessary that we should judge a subject of this character with full and clear knowledge, free from passion and self-interest, because passion is invariably a bad reasoner.
Unlike the hon. Member for North Dorset, I do not believe that this is a plea for the extension of individual freedom; I think it is an attempt to destroy the liberty of the majority and to give licence to the few in order to destroy what the great majority have built up by year; of strenuous effort. The Amendment would give power to a few men in breakaway unions to perform any action they determined to take, without external restraint by law or by the majority. Such freedom to destroy what has been built up is an


abuse of freedom. It is hardly necessary for me to give analogies of where freedom is being restricted in the interests of the wider freedom of the people. We have freedom of the Press, and the Press is free to publish what it likes, subject to a penalty for publishing anything mischievous, hurtful or libellous to the public or the individual. That is a restricted liberty, and it has been accepted. The hon. Member for Rugby said that the individual can do what he likes. But a man cannot build a house where and how he likes. He has to conform to the regulations and bylaws of the local authority in the interests of the greater number of people, and to see that their liberty is neither destroyed nor prejudiced. Therefore, that liberty is restricted in the interests of the greater number of people. We have inspectors to prevent the manufacturers of food from, manufacturing bad food that would injure the health of the people. Their liberty is restricted.

Mr. Byers: That is the crux of the whole argument. Cannot the hon. Member see the difference between a body which is not responsible to Parliament, and actions which are taken under the law?

Mr. Awbery: In law the restriction on the liberty of the subject is introduced in order to give an extended and: wider liberty to the greater number. I am trying to indicate that the freedom which some hon. Members wish to give to a small number would destroy the liberty of the great majority. What do we in the trade union movement believe? If a union, by its industrial power, has become the recognised negotiating machinery in a factory or a workshop, and that union enters into contractual obligations on behalf of the workers, we say that every employee in that factory or workshop should belong to the union, which is a part of the negotiating machinery. The principle has been recognised for years that a man should belong to that particular union. Let me tell hon. Members opposite that that union is the union which is chosen by the men themselves. The union is not thrust upon a factory. It is the choice of the workpeople, and when they have chosen their union and established it as the negotiating machinery, we say that that is the one to which they should belong. If by chance two, three or four

unions organise a large proportion of the workpeople and jointly set up negotiating machinery to meet the employers and to bargain in regard to wages, hours and conditions, then we say that every employee in that factory or industry should be a member of one of the recognised unions that carry the responsibility of negotiating. No union is thrust upon a body of men. It is there by their choice. This has been described, I understand, as the closed shop.

Mr. Byers: Would the hon. Member say that the passenger workers' union was the choice of the men?

Mr. Awbery: I will come to the question of the London Passenger Transport Board, which is the cause of the trouble. This is a principle which we have accepted and which has been recognised by both sides in most industries. Why, now, is there this attempt to smash the machinery which has worked so smoothly and efficiently for many years during the very trying period of the war, and which is still operating satisfactorily? Why there should be an attempt to destroy it now is beyond my comprehension. I can only suggest that, because our opponents have failed to prevent the growth of the trade union movement, they are now encouraging this group of men to break away from the recognised methods of negotiation, without which it would be impossible for us to carry on our ever-increasingly complex industrial system. The Amendment would encourage the establishment of splinter and fragmentary unions which would break up unity and destroy this joint machinery. That is not trade unionism. That is a policy of antitrade unionism such as has been adopted from time immemorial by hon. Members opposite on the benches above the Gangway. The loyal trade unionist who has entered into contractual obligations is anxious to carry them out to the fullest degree, but in carrying out those obligations he does not wish to be under the necessity of looking back over his shoulder all the time to see whether there are disloyal colleagues ready to stab him in the back by forming splinter unions. If we agree to the policy which has been suggested, it would destroy the power and the effect of collective bargaining, and would throw us back to where we were decades ago.
The question of the closed shop arose recently out of the action of the London Passenger Transport Board, which agreed to recognise one union for certain classes of its employees. I think it is necessary that the House should see the whole picture and know the reason for this action of the London Passenger Transport Board before arriving at a definite decision. Partial knowledge on these subjects is dangerous. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad to hear that hon. Members opposite agree; I am afraid that many of them are not possessed of full knowledge on this matter, even though they think they knew all about it. What has happened in regard to the London Passenger Transport Board? In the early days of its existence, the Board engaged men who were non-unionists, who were in any union, or who were in the particular union concerned. Subsequently, these men were organised in one union. They established a union, and a joint machinery of their own choice, the principle of collective bargaining, between the London Passenger Transport Board and their own particular union. The machine was set up of representatives of the Board and of the union, which worked very satisfactorily till 1937. In 1937 a strike took place.
When that strike terminated, a small minority of disgruntled and dissatisfied men, encouraged by outsiders not associated with the road transport industry in any form, formed a splinter union, and broke the unity which existed. Those people who provoked these few men did a great disservice, not only to the trade union movement, but to this country as well. When they started the dangerous stone rolling they should have taken care to see the direction in which it was rolling, and the inevitable danger entailed as a result. They are now staggered and surprised at the result of their efforts. They have, undoubtedly, consistently and persistently, provoked these men to be disloyal, to break away from the fidelity of their own union. Their knowledge of the loyalty of trade unionists is as small as their vanity and conceit are great.

Major Tufton Beamish: Will the hon. Member please tell the House who "they" are? Who are these people outside the transport organisations who are discouraging trade unions?

Mr. Awbery: I am talking of the people who disrupted loyalty and created disunity in 1937.

Major Beamish: But may we know who they are?

Mr. Gallacher: The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown).

Mr. Awbery: It the cap fits, the hon. and gallant Member can put it on. If it does not, he can leave it alone. I know the men whom it fits.

Mr. Brendan Bracken: The hon. Member is following his.manuscript. Do not interrupt him.

Mr. Awbery: I was going on to say, that the trade unionists can give lessons in loyalty to a large section, or most of the section—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames): To the hon. Member's party.

Mr. Awbery: It is by the loyalty, unity, and the cooperation of trade unionists that they have become a force in the national life of this country. The people who have discouraged this loyalty have been throwing sand into the negotiating machine all the time. They have tried to prevent it from working. When the breakaway took place in 1937, the loyal trade unionists were prevented, under the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act, that notorious Act of 1927, from taking any action, because theirs was a public utility service; and they were compelled to suffer treachery and disloyalty in their own ranks. It may have been comparatively easy in 1937, in the prevailing circumstances, to form a fragmentary union, to cut a chip from the old block; but, happily, those days are ended. The trade unionists, largely through the service that they rendered during the period, the trying period, of the war, are now strong enough, not only to resist attacks upon themselves, but to heal the breaches that were made when we were not in power.
Now that the notorious Act of 1927, born out of malice, and hatred of the combination of organised workers, has been removed, the men of the London Passenger Transport Board have decided that the time has come to compel loyalty and membership for all who enjoy the benefits of their negotiations. They ask why, if others receive the benefits of their nego-


tiations, they should not undertake to carry out their obligations? If there is no legal obligation, there is a moral obligation. It is because they are not prepared to carry out their moral obligation that hon. Members opposite are supporting them. Let them carry out their moral obligation even if it is not legal. The London Passenger Transport Board men have now asked that we should revert to the 1937 position, when there was one union, and before the splinter union was established. They feel that the obstruction, if permitted to continue, will mean that everything of value to them will be in danger of being destroyed. They say that if we are going to give liberty to a few, as suggested by hon. Members opposite, then they must regain the liberty that they previously enjoyed of being able to say that they will not work with those men who will not carry out their moral obligations.
Why this concern for the disloyal men who desire to establish a splinter union? If a small percentage of men in a factory are encouraged to break away from the negotiating machine, then, I say, quite frankly, to the Tory Members, we will not have peace and harmony in industry. There will be chaos, confusion and anarchy. If that is what hon. Members want, then they will support the splinter union. The trade unions on the conciliating bodies carry great responsibilities. It would be a crime to destroy these bodies for settling industrial problems. But some people are prepared to go to that extent, to commit the crime and break the machine, because it would suit their own selfish purposes. The Government, the employers and the trade union movement have recognised the full value of these instruments. If they did not exist in our industry today, it would be absolutely necessary, in the circumstances, to establish them, because industry could not work without them. As to the effectiveness of the machine, I should like to point out that, in 1919, a year after the last war, when these instruments were in their infancy, we suffered 10 days' loss by strike. Only one has been lost in the year following the recent war, when these machines were in existence.
I should, finally, like to say something about the opinion of the Transport Board on this matter. They have been left en-

tirely out of the picture, and the impression conveyed by hon. Members opposite is, that this is entirely the request of the trade union. But what have the employers to say? They should know their own business. They employ from 100,000 to 120,000 men. What have they to say about this so-called closed shop in the London Passenger Transport Board? Are they to be considered? Are we to ask them for their opinion? This is what they say: "We recognise that we have statutory obligations to the travelling public. In order to carry out those obligations it is necessary that we should have good relations with our employees. By this good relationship we can get a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of friction." They say that they have agreements with the same trade union with which they have negotiated for years on hours, wages and conditions. They tell us that, when new entrants join the service, they are told that all agreements are made through a particular union and all matters must be settled through that machinery. The Board have not entered into any agreement with any other union for their operating and maintenance staff. They also state that the breakaway union has never been recognised and no agreement has ever been entered into with that organisation. The breakaway union created difficulties in securing the observance of agreements by the recognised union, to which the Board look for their observance.
The Board considered the existing unsatisfactory position and desired to terminate it. They then agreed to recognise the Transport and General Workers' Union on the understanding that non-members could join, and decided to discontinue the service of any unwilling to do so. They say that, now that there is one union representing the whole of their employees, it can speak for all the men and conduct negotiations on wages, hours and conditions and, at the same time, carry the responsibilities involved as a negotiating body. They wind up by saying this:
The London Passenger Transport Board recognises the supreme importance of this negotiating machine, and decided that it should not be destroyed.
The inference is that the splinter union wanted this wonderful machine which exists to settle their disputes destroyed, because it insists on a maximum of effi-


ciency and a minimum of friction. Surely, the London Passenger Transport Board understand their own position and their own negotiating machinery? Are we to cut across the considered opinion of the London Passenger Transport Board and their employees? If the Government, as employers, employ workpeople, they will want to know what responsible organisation they have to deal with before they will enter into any agreement. I suggest that the principle operates, too, in other industries, and I shall ask the House, therefore to vote against the Amendment.

5.34 P.m.

Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: Among the matters which the last speaker has put before us there is one at any rate which will not be a matter of controversy. I agree with him that it is necessary to clarify the facts, and delimit the practical issues which are involved in this question. I am not at all sorry that he took the example—and spent some time on it—of the London Passenger Transport Board, because I think every one will agree that that was the case which aroused public interest in this matter. That interest was aroused because the claim was not that non-union labour should not be employed; all the persons concerned were trade unionists. It was not a claim that the Transport and General Workers' Union should have negotiating powers. They had them already, and they had had them since 1933. It was a claim that their members should have an exclusive right to employment in the grades concerned; it is a claim, to put it in other words, that no one should earn a living in London Transport, unless by the consent of the Transport and General Workers' Union.
It is that matter which has deeply worried a large section of opinion in this country, not confined to this party or the party below the Gangway, but spreading deeply into many respected and honoured members of the party opposite. We realise that although the hon. Gentleman has dealt with that example, it does not stand alone We have seen the case of the Smithfield Guild of Clerks, actually a negotiating body. We have seen a different line of attack but with the same objects in the case of the Aeronautical Engineers Association, and our memories are not so short that we cannot remember

the position of the dockers and the Amalgamated Stevedores Association in 1923. But we do notice that whereas the Amalgamated Stevedores had 25 per cent. of the London dockers when they took over from the Transport and General Workers Union in 1923, what happened to them was expulsion from the Trades Union Congress, and they only got back a comparatively short time ago. That, after all, was a matter for the Trades Union Congress and its constituent unions. We are not immensely interested in what the Trades Union Congress may do with its constituents, but we are immensely interested in this question: On what conditions and on what deprivations people are or are not going to get work in London. And that is why we have come forward today to support this Amendment. It is no longer a matter of a union not being received into the bosom of the T.U.C.; it is a matter of men not being allowed to work unless they get the consent of certain union officials, and we have seen today from the examples what that may mean.
That is an urgent problem. I thought, until the hon. Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery) made his speech—which is obviously the unofficial official defence, if I may put it that way—that the Council of the Trades Union Congress had put forward two aspects of the matter. They deprecated of course being criticised on the question of the closed shop at all. Of course it is very pleasant if you can choose not only your own arguments, but the arguments of your opponents. I thought, until the hon. Member made his speech, that there was general consent for these two broad propositions: that an establishment in which only members of a particular union can be employed to the exclusion of other unions is alien to British trade union practice and theory, and that one must never consent to the recognition of an exclusive right to organise by one union where other unions have built up their organisation side by side with it. I thought that that was generally accepted.

Mr. O'Brien: That is not quite fair play. The T.U.C. standing orders regulate the relationship between unions affiliated to the T.U.C, and my hon. Friend was dealing with break-away unions which desire to encroach in organised industry.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I was waiting for that. I quoted that without altering a word, from a statement issued by the T.U.C., and I was waiting for some hon. Member on the other side of the House to come forward and qualify it, just as the hon. Member qualified it a few minutes ago. We know that it is lip service to freedom, and that there are qualifications when it is put up to hon. Members in the House. How did the hon. Member for Central Bristol conform to these pious platitudes which other hon. Members will not accept in their entirety? The way he put it was that employees should belong to the union which was part of the negotiating machinery, and that they must compel the loyalties which are necessary That is the statement which is made to us today when we bring the matter up, and that shows the reliance which can be put on these platitudes when it comes to actual operation.
Nothing I have said, even in answer to the hon. Member, was one-tenth as strong as the way in which this matter was put by the representative of the Chemical Workers Union, Mr. Edwards, at the Brighton meeting of the T.U.C. Here is a trade union leader who is speaking for a small union. He cannot of course swing the votes, or attract the same audience as hon. Members who come from greater unions with enormous card votes. And so, Mr. Edwards can talk sense. He warned the conference that the big issues involved might lead to a welter of disputes in important industries. Is that right, or is it wrong merely because it comes from someone whose union has not a big membership? He said that the United States had shown the danger of "strong-arm squads" being attached to unions to maintain their membership against the industrial worker. He referred to the
abuse of the closed shop principle forced on industrial workers with the blessing of monopoly employers.
Mr. Edwards then went on to say:
So let us not sweep this matter away with a smile and decide there are no issues involved. The Chemical Workers Union will allow no big power in the country, either employers or unions, to drive us out without a fight.
Whether the chemical workers would like it or not, they may rest assured that they do not stand alone in that forthright pronouncement of their views. We must consider what are the facts. We find, again

and again, that the great trade unions have become infected recently with a passion for mere bigness. They have a sort of numbers complex, and seem to think that the efficiency of a union depends on the number of members they can show on their books. There are two results which have become clear, and they are facts which are far beyond any peradventure. There has been a growing and noticeable separation between the interests, views and ideas of those who are at the centre of the unions and those who are members of the branches. We find that unofficial strikes are among just those unions which have been going out for huge membership, and whose discipline and control of, and support by, their outlying members have suffered for that reason.
It is idle therefore for the right hon. Gentleman, or for the hon. Member who interrupted a short time ago, to talk about "scab unions," when one finds that smaller unions are growing up—the hon. Member inferentially proved it in regard to one union when he referred to the history of the persons behind it. These are not unions formed to help employers. The whole background about which the hon. Member spoke shows that they are not "scab" unions in any sense in which that word can properly be used. They are unions formed by people who were not satisfied with the treatment they were receiving in the bigger unions at the time. They may or may not have had grounds for that dissatisfaction, but that is not the point which interests us on this side of the House. We say that freedom of association is one of the essential principles of democracy. It is a principle which the trade unions fought for throughout the 19th century, and whatever the hon. Member may say, he is bound to admit that during that, time, as shown by the Statute Book, the Conservative Party assisted in the fight for freedom. Whether he accepts that or not, he ought, if he is a democrat, to accept the importance of freedom of combination, both in the industrial foreground and the moral background of this country. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. J. Edwards) on the last occasion when it was considered by this House, said:
We have never suggested for one minute that compulsion—be it in the individual workshop or as between various unions—should ever rest on any other principle than the principle which we shall be accepting when we


go into the Lobbies to vote on this Motion tonight, an inherent principle in our political democracy, and a principle which is quite essential to any proper functioning of an industrial democracy."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th October, 1946; Vol. 427, c. 666.]
That reliance, that inclusion of compulsion in that way as a principle of government, and a principle of industrial democracy, shows the chasm that yawns between Members opposite and ourselves. To argue that because you need to keep certain standards of behaviour, certain excellent minimum standards of conditions, you are to go on denying the right of people to associate as they desire, is not only a logical fallacy, but is political retrogression and reaction of the worst kind.
The question of nationalised industry has not become the question of tomorrow; it is the question of today. Members opposite cannot get away from that. We have had Mr. Will Lawther of the Mine-workers' Association already asking that' in the nationalised coal trade there should be a closed shop for his union, that everyone in that industry ought to be in that union. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I am glad that Members opposite have not run away from that statement, because it is the kernel of my argument. I want them to face my next point, which is this. On the one side you are to have a State monopoly, coal organised in the form of a State monopoly, with, I agree, responsibilities to the consumer, however bad the machinery may be for doing the consumer any good. Parallel to that, you are to have a union which is a private monopoly, which has no public responsibilities, which is not in any way controlled by Governmental powers. In it the man who has worked in the coal trade all his life, be it at the coal face or anywhere else, will now depend entirely on the officials of that private monopoly as to whether he is to be able to work, or whether he is to be an industrial untouchable, whose back years are to count for nothing, so leaving him in misery. I say that, bad as the position is today, under nationalised industries it is a form of tyranny which no free State should contemplate. Because of that, I support the Amendment.
I now come to a point on which I hope to get the support of hon. Members opposite Although I do not suppose that they would follow any words of mine, I hope

they will follow the weighty words of the Prime Minister. When the Trades Disputes Bill was before the House in 1927 the Prime Minister said this:
We believe in collective bargaining and we believe that people should belong to their proper organisations; and I am bound to say that I have never found any complaint about it,
Then the-right hon. Gentleman went on:
I quite agree that it has been done wisely. We ought not to say, 'Here is a particular union, you must join that and leave your own.' I have resisted that when it was tried on. That is not fair."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st May, 1927; Vol. 207; c. 260–61.]
It is because of that, that we say today that it is not fair, and that is why we are supporting this Amendment.

5.56.p.m.

Mr. Williamson: I rise to refer to some of the considerations which have been raised by the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D Maxwell Fyfe), It is peculiar that just at this stage there should be Members on the other side of the House getting hot and bothered about what are called the trade union bosses; It is not so long ago since some of them Were praising trade union leaders for the work which had been done in industry by organised workers, and had resulted in a great contribution to the war effort. There are, in this country, something like 17 million workpeople. There are about 7 million organised work people, and 10 million unorganized workers. The big unions, with their tremendous, power, have not taken, action to force into unions the 10 million un organised workers. The right hon. And learned Gentleman opposite said that he and his friends were interested in the conditions in which men will get work. May I suggest that the organised workpeople of this country are interested in safe guarding the wages and conditions which they have built up during the last 50 years?
In my opinion, we have, in this country] the best negotiating system in the world. There is good feeling on both sides of industry, between employers and employees. They meet and, in harmony, make agreements which are binding on both sides. Just as it is expected that employers will keep agreements, so do we expect the workpeople to keep them. But what do we find? We find the breakaway unions in which Members opposite are so interested. These unions are being


formed in various industries, and their purpose and intention is to undermine the machinery of which the organised workers are exceedingly jealous. Not only that, but they seek to undermine agreements. It is on record that when agreements have been made trade unions have been attacked by the small breakaway unions, who have said that the pass has been sold to the employer. They have created distrust and lack of confidence on the part of the organised workers.
It is not the trade union leaders who are taking action on the "closed shop" which, by the way, is a misnomer. In certain industries the organised workers have said, "We have had enough of it; we are not going to allow our machinery and agreements to be undermined." There are many industries in which there are non-unionists, including the chemical industry, referred to by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, where today, a man has a right to join three or four unions. There is no restrictive right in any union, nor any intention that there should be. Therefore, it is misleading the country to say that there is any intention on the part of the trade union movement, or the trade union leaders, to force the workpeople into one union; I warn this House, and I warn the country, that the last has not been heard of this. There are today important industrial establishments where the employers, whose intention is to undermine the workers, are giving outside support to break away unions, and if that is continued, I assure this House that more than one industry in this country will be involved in a serious stoppage.
I wish that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues opposite, before they come, to this House and make statements about the freedom of the individual and a man being prevented from getting work unless he is in a particular trade union, would get their facts right. It is perfectly true that there are people in industry, who have become a menace, and who have acted against the interests of the rest of the workpeople, until, at some stage, those workpeople have taken action, and, in my opinion, rightly so. I am certain that if they were aware of the facts, the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his colleagues would agree with me. The right hon. and learned: Gentle-

man mentioned the freedom of the individual. May I remind the House that during the building up of these unions there was victimisation, and not on a small scale? Members on this side of the House have suffered from victimisation, but hon. Gentlemen opposite did not come to this House to move any Amendment to the Address to prevent it. Employers today know that they cannot get away with victimisation, but they want to separate the organised workers. Is there any Member of this House who believes that 2,000 men would strike because one or two men were not in a union, unless there was a reason for it? Do hon. Gentlemen opposite believe that men strike, go without wages and involve them selves in financial difficulty without a reason? Therefore, I say to this House that if it is a question of maintaining the stability of negotiating machinery and agreements, and if it is a question of two men or 2,000 the two men have to go. There is no reason why in any industrial establishment, where a man plays the game, he should join a union. He can be a non-unionist. The fact of the matter is that some of the unionists do not want these men in the unions. If, besides being non-unionist, a man continually creates disputes, and uses his endeavours to persuade men to leave the union, there comes a time when the rest of the men say, "We have had enough of it, and we will take action." Will the right hon. Gentleman or his colleagues say it is right that a non-unionist, who has made no contribution, financial or otherwise, should receive the benefits which have been gained by the trade unions?

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman since he has asked a question? I want in turn to ask him a question. Does he agree that a man who pays no taxes should be deprived of the use of water, police and other public services?

Mr. Williamson: I was asking a question of hon. Gentlemen opposite There is great expenditure put into the important negotiating machinery of this country. There are workmen who contribute towards that machinery. Do hon. Gentlemen opposite say openly that the non-unionist should receive those benefits without making any contribution at all. I would have every respect for the non-unionist if, after benefits had been gained,


he went to the employer and said, "I have had no part in these negotiations, and, therefore, I do not want to benefit." But he always takes them, and not only takes them, but says to the man working next to him: "You are a fool to pay your trade union contribution, because I get the same as you do, and I do not pay." Those are the men who are being encouraged by this Amendment, and we may as well face it. I say to this House that the organised trade unionists in this country will have none of it; nor will they allow any encouragement of the non-trade unionist. I put this to the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite: A case has been decided in the courts where a non-unionist sued for certain wages and conditions, and the judge declared that there was no contract between his trade union and his employer, and, therefore, he had no right in that court. I say that the time has come when the trade unionists of this country, if there are benefits to be gained by negotiations and not by strikes, ought to receive them by contract with the employer, and let non-unionists go into the industrial courts and other arbitration courts to negotiate for themselves.
There is no substance in this Amendment. If it passed through this House it would be serious, and it would not be only the T.U.C. or trade union "bosses" who would take note, but the men outside who, for the past 30 years, have brought wages up, brought hours down, and gained conditions like overtime and holidays. They intend to protect those conditions, and I hope that the House will not vote for this Amendment.

6.9 p.m.

Mr. Henry Strauss: There are three Amendments on this subject, all in substantial agreement with one another—the Amendment so ably moved by the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers), the Amendment which stands in my name, and the Amendment that stood in the name of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) who made such a persuasive speech in seconding this Amendment today.
The hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Williamson) is quite right when he says that the last has not been heard of this subject. It was significant, I thought, when he said how serious the consequences

would be if this Amendment were adopted. The serious consequences would be, as explained by the mover and seconder, that there would be an inquiry. That is regarded by hon. Gentlemen opposite as serious. They may be right, because it would have serious consequences in showing up the nature of this tyranny against which, in three separate Amendments, we, on this side of the House, protest.
The hon. Member for Brigg tried to drag in the case of the non-unionist. Every speech that has been made in sap-port of this Amendment has pointed out that that is not the question which is now raised. I do not think that he could have seriously thought that so eminent a lawyer as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) was ignorant of the case of Allen v. Flood decided by the House of Lords in 1898. We all know that it is quite lawful to strike against the employment of non-union men, but that is not the question which is now raised. Let us take the example of the London Passenger Transport Board. First of all, the action which they took was admittedly rendered possible—and here, at least, every hon. Member is in agreement—by the repeal of the 1027 Act and in particular of Section 6 of that Act, against which my party fought as hard as it could. It moved, in an all-night Sitting, the exception from repeal of that Section of the 1927 Act, and I wish that on that occasion we had had the support of the Liberal Party, which we have today. Unfortunately, in that all-night Sitting, the Conservatives provided the only speakers on the relevant Amendment, although the hon. Member for North Dorset did vote with us on that occasion. The ex-chief Whip of his party voted on the other side, and only one other Member of his party appears to have been present. The action of the London Passenger Transport Board was the result of the repeal of the 1927 Act, and, as we know from Ministerial statements, it was the desired result of that repeal. The issue is not any question of the employment of non-union men: Admittedly the men to whom the members of the bigger union objected were trade unionists, like themselves. Secondly, the issue has nothing to do with who should negotiate with the em-


ployers. The bigger union had enjoyed that exclusive right from 1933.
It was the quite simple question whether one particular union should have the absolute monopoly of employment in the grades concerned. Whether that would be tolerable or not, if any man who wished to join it could do so, may be a matter for argument, but, as has been pointed out, and as is indeed claimed by hon. Members opposite, the union has an absolute right to refuse any application to join without giving any reason of any kind. There is no appeal whatsoever against such a refusal, a refusal that makes the man, if the industry concerned is a monopoly, into an industrial outlaw. I wonder whether there is any hon. Member opposite who, if he really grasps that, will believe that this country, where the traditions of freedom are fairly old, is going to tolerate a state of affairs in which a union, without being able to be called to account by anybody, can say to a man, "Either you join this union, if we will let you—but we may just not choose to let you—or you have to give up any right to earn your living in the industry."

Major Cecil Poole: Is not that quite on a par with what obtains in many large industries, where a small trader, if he will not come into an industrial combine, finds that he is depriving himself of a livelihood because he is deprived of raw materials?

Mr. Byers: And it is equally wrong.

Mr. Strauss: How far that is the case may be a matter for debate. I am very anxious to be brief, but in so far as the hon. and gallant Member has a point to make, it could certainly be raised before the inquiry for which the hon. Member for North Dorset is asking. The Prime Minister, in the passage quoted by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), declared himself against this principle of a single monopoly union in 1927. This matter has nothing to do with splinter unions. I believe that hon. Members are being quite sincere when they say that, in their opinion, this particular union in London Transport could be described as a splinter union. I do not agree with them, although they may be sincere in that contention; but it is obvious that that term "splinter union"

cannot be applied to many other unions to which the same objection is being raised. Sometimes the objection is that the smaller union is not affiliated to the T.U.C. Is that the case? If so, not only is the T.U.C. a political body, as has been pointed out—

Mr. Isaacs: Will the hon. and learned Member give one example of a worker being refused employment because his union was not affiliated to the T.U.C?

Mr. Strauss: I did not say he was refused employment. The attempt was made at Smithfield. In the case of the Smithfield Guild of Clerks and Salesmen, the strike against them was because, specifically, they were not a union affiliated to the T.U.C. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If that was not the reason, there was no reason. [An HON. MEMBER: "It was a splinter union."] An hon. Member opposite calls it a splinter union, but it is a union that has been recognised for years as a negotiating body in the grades concerned. Suppose that one makes the test T.U.C. affiliation, then N.A.L.G.O. is not affiliated and the N.U.T. is not affiliated. Do hon. Members opposite say that a trade union cannot be respectable unless it is affiliated to the T.U.C?
The case against the closed shop is, first of all, on the grounds of individual freedom. The hon. Member for North Dorset and the hon. Member for Rugby are perfectly right. That matter is raised quite clearly and acutely by the practice which we condemn. The Minister of.Labour, in his speech on the Third Reading of the Bill to repeal the 1927 Act, used these words:
I am confident that I can give a pledge that the fears of victimisation, intimidation and prevention of the operation of conscience will not be realised as a result of any action by the trade unions."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd April, 1946; Vol. 427, c. 1112.]
I have no doubt whatever that the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly sincere in making that statement, but the action that is now being taken under this attempted enforcement of the closed shop is in many cases an absolute outrage on conscience.

Mr. Scollan: Did the hon. and learned Gentleman vote against conscription?

Mr. Strauss: I should be wildly out of Order if I were to discuss conscription


on this Amendment. An example of a case where conscience is involved, quite clearly, is the case where, in the present state of affairs, a man objects to joining a trade union on the ground that it is definitely in favour of a limitation of output when he regards the increase of output as being in the public interest. Let me give another case: there is a strike at the present moment to enforce the right to drive dangerously. I say that, if any hon. Member does not think that the question of freedom is involved in this matter, he should read the obviously sincere words—the hon. Member did not realise how outrageous what he was saying sounded in the ears of all those who have some traditional regard for British liberty—of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. J. Edwards) in the last Debate on this subject. I hope the House will take notice of those words, because they put in a nutshell our different conceptions of freedom. This is what he said, in rebuking the hon. Member for North Dorset:
He talked about the rights of individual human liberty. I want to put quite a contrary point of view. In my view, civilisation is beginning to reach maturity when the members of any community are intelligent enough to order their affairs and to compel the recalcitrant man, the ignorant man or the wicked man, to submit to compulsory rules for the common good of all men. I put it quite like that."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th October, T946; Vol. 427, c. 664.]
So did Hitler. I say that not only is individual freedom affected in this way, but so is the reputation of trade unionism, and I would commend to hon. Members opposite the comment made in a paper by no means unfriendly to them and not in the least favourable generally to my party—"The Economist," of 26th October. It pointed out that, if there was to be a limitation of human freedom, it ought to be by compulsion exercised on the authority of the State, and not by an irresponsible body outside.
On the political side a second point is made. The article pointed out the danger, if this thing is continued, of something like the labour front which we know in totalitarian countries. To show that that fear is not limited to Tories let me quote the words of Mr. Arthur Deakin in an interview which he gave to the "Daily Express." He said that his members "were against the closed shop, because it would lead to the danger of the British variation of the Nazi labour front idea."
Finally, on the economic side, I want to say that never has this country had greater need of an incentive to skill and sanctions against indolence than at the present time. Trade unionists in many cases are opposed to both these things. Let me quote this from "The Economist" as the final part of my argument.
The closed shop doctrine would make matters worse, for it would still further banish both the carrot of reward and the stick of adversity. It is a doctrine for valetudinarians, for those who cherish repose and fear competition. It is emphatically not a doctrine for a country that has to make its way in the world all over again.
I commend this Amendment to the House.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Lee: I was really touched by the deep sincerity which rang in the voice of the right hon. Gentleman opposite when he spoke of the great fight which the trade unions had waged during the nineteenth century in order to come to their present position. He pointed out that his party had always been most sympathetic towards the unions in the fight. It may be pertinent for me to ask against whom the fight was waged. If we were all on one side and if, in fact, the unions were led by the leaders of the Tory Party, against whom was the fight waged? In these days when we see this solicitude from the other side we should remember the time when the Welsh valleys were filled by unemployed miners and the industrial North by unemployed engineers. We did not hear much about Amendments of this kind being put down to the Address or introduced under other kinds of Parliamentary procedure from hon. Members opposite.
The great struggle which has taken place since the birth of the trade union movement has, of course, been one which has been waged by people with an ordered mind. They realised that it was not sufficient merely to try to get better conditions for themselves, but that it was essential that they should organise themselves in a proper manner in order that the full weight of their arguments would be felt in those quarters which would not listen to any other type of argument. When listening to the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) I was struck by his emphasis on liberty and it is on this that I would like to speak for a few moments.


Does he really believe that liberty of itself is something akin to anarchy under certain conditions? Is it not true to say that when the hon. Gentleman comes to this House he accepts the Standing Orders of the House? By accepting those Standing Orders he sacrifices some of his liberty. So in an ordered society we must subject ourselves to proper discipline and to acceptance of our social responsibilities. When we submit the conditions in industry to negotiations between two organised bodies it is essential that the people who accept responsibility for signing agreements after negotiation with employers should, at the same time, be able to assure employers that they can see to it that those responsibilities will be carried out.

Mr. Byers: Since the hon. Gentleman has asked me questions, let me say that the individual loss must be balanced against the community's gain and that that balance should be a matter for Parliament rather than for an outside body which has no responsibility to Parliament.

Mr. Lee: I am making the point that in an ordered society our aims should be the greatest good for the greatest number, and we cannot agree to condone what would become anarchy and chaos if we allowed it to obtain. From that point of view liberty is as much desired by the greatest number within industry, and, therefore, this question of liberty is conditional. It is not merely for one individual to place himself in a position irrespective of what views the vast number of his fellow workers hold. What does the issue of a closed shop imply? Surely, it implies, as several hon. Members have said, that those who benefit by the negotiating machinery which has been set up should, in fact, play their part in ensuring the continuity of that machine. That is, as we see it, precisely what the closed shop implies, and in these days, when the trade union movement has taken on far greater responsibilities than ever before, it is all the more incumbent upon trade unionists to see to it that their side of the bargain and their kind of responsibility is shared equally by all those people who participate in the benefit.
In these days the trade union movement is not only concerned with wages and conditions, but I think that both sides of the House will agree that it shoulders far

greater social responsibility than ever it did before. Again, I would reiterate the words of one of my hon. Friends, that had it not been for the ability of the trade union movement to accept that responsibility it is highly problematical whether we would be able to discuss liberty in any fashion at all in this Chamber this afternoon. We are all concerned that there should be peace in industry. If the Government's drive for increased production, backed as it is by Members in all quarters of the House, is to be a success, then peace in industry is an essential pre-requisite. I ask hon. Gentlemen whether, if they had to work side by side with persons who not only refused to be members of a trade union but also flaunted the fact that they were drawing more real wages because they did not pay any trade union money, that would make for peace in industry? Do they really believe that the ordinary sound fellow could really put his back into a productive effort under conditions of that kind?
It is essential that our people in industry should know that their effort is one of joint responsibility—and I make a particular point of this—not for wage increases on the production front, but responsibility for the training of trainees, dilutees, etc., which the trade unions undertook. This responsibility should not only be for the trade union boss, if hon. Members like to put it that way, but it implies that every member of a trade union should enter into the spirit of the effort, for only by that method can we get the maximum productivity from the workers of the country. I have heard people opposite talk about workers not paying trade union dues for reasons of conscience. I have had a pretty long experience, and I say that the next person who admits to me that he does not pay his trade union dues because his conscience prohibits him will be the first. I have never met a trade unionist who has said that. Almost inevitably it is their pockets that are touched and not their conscience.
It is necessary, when we arrive at agreement from which benefits in industry will inevitably accrue, that both sides should know that each has the ability to see to it that, in fact, the agreements are honoured. It is a matter, therefore, as I see it, of industrial anarchy and not industrial freedom. Unless we could get the ideal State—which, alas, we have not yet achieved—where each and every person in industry,


both employer and employed, could be trusted to give of his uttermost for the wellbeing of the State without coercion, then freedom of the type envisaged by the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment is indeed a long way off. I have listened with attention to the efforts of hon. Gentlemen opposite to evoke sympathy from hon. Members on this side of the House for the breakaway unions. I know that one hon. Gentleman tonight is going to shed tears about the Aeronautical Engineers' Association, which has been mentioned already by another hon. Gentleman opposite. It is necessary that we should say that there are elements growing up today in the trade union movement, personified in particular by the union J have just mentioned, which are not neutral elements but are being deliberately fostered for the purpose of breaking the trade union movement, and particularly, to break the political power of the T.U.C.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: Can the hon. Member give any proof of what he has just said? Hon. Members opposite talk a great deal about the intentions of the so-called breakaway unions and of the intentions of employers in that connection. But can there be any proof at all?

Mr. Lee: Perhaps I can convince the hon. Gentleman in this way. This particular union came into existence during the war period under the agreement relaxation which I have mentioned, and which allowed trainees and dilutees to go into the industry. Skilled members of the A.E.U. taught the trainees to do the job, but before that position arose a relaxation form was signed whereby the persons concerned were brought in on a purely temporary basis and an undertaking given that when the needs for their services no longer existed, and the engineers came back from the war, they would leave the industry. That was implicit in their being brought in, but what have we seen since? They immediately set up a breakaway union and are now asking the Government to say, in spite of the pledges contained in the agreement between the employers and the union concerned, that they will be recognised as a bona fideunion and that the whole of these agreements will be scrapped over night. The burden of my argument is that the majority of these splinter trade unions against which the T.U.C. have set their face and against which we politically have set our face, are not merely neutral or just a healthy

growth of people who, perhaps, like the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) are dissatisfied with the type of constitution of a particular union. There are unions which are insidious and are being deliberately brought to bear in order to weaken the power we have built up over a great many years. It is for that reason, and for that reason only, that we turn our face against them.
This movement has grown to its present position, not as has been implied from the benches opposite because we desire to curtail anybody's liberty, but precisely because millions of people in the country recognise that the fight against tyranny which the trade unions have pursued for years is the very embodiment of liberty. That is the reason why these benches are filled today. So far as we are concerned we do not wish to control the ability of any person to obtain work. Again, when the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite was so upset in his desire to get men work and so on, he really should have cast his mind back to the time when three or four million people were trudging the streets and the valleys hopelessly and helplessly asking for work, and when the great octopus led by the Tory Party denied them work and refused to allow them to get what they needed for their wives and children.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Wilfrid Roberts: The hon. Member for Hulme (Mr. F. Lee) received a definite challenge to give evidence that a particular union was being developed or had been sponsored for destructive purposes, but gave absolutely no such evidence. If I may say so, hon. Members who speak from the benches opposite are apt to make wild charges against those of us who support this very mild request. They make charges that we are anarchists, and that we are disruptive, and anti-union, without, in my opinion, producing any evidence in support of those charges. I am sorry that they have reacted in that way, because we think that we are making a constructive and very mild and reasonable suggestion. We are asking for an inquiry into the position of what we recognise to be organisations of the greatest importance to the country at the present time. I can only say that there is no sense of hostility to the unions among those of us who have put down this Amendment.
I do not come to the problem like the hon. Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery) with 26 years' experience as a trade union organiser; I come to it as a Member of Parliament desiring to help those I represent, and I wish to put to the Minister of Labour a comparison between two of my constituents. Two neighbours happen to have been members of the trade union mentioned by the hon. Member for Hulme, the Aeronautical Engineers Association. Both were trained under the Government scheme during the war. Today one of them is a member of the A.E.U., but the other has stuck to the other union. The one who is a member of the A.E.U. is safely in employment, while the one who is not is under threat of dismissal, the moment there is any redundancy at the works. There is no difference in the training of those two men. They are equally skilled and both went through the same processes, but one is classed as a dilutee, because he is not a member of a particular trade union. An hon. Gentleman opposite shakes his head, but it is a most extraordinary thing that at Belfast, where 98 men were concerned in a thing of this kind, just by chance of course, the 18 who joined the A.E.U. are all classed now as skilled workers, whereas the 80 who did not, are "redundant" workers and have either been dismissed or removed to other work.

Mr. Lee: rose—

Mr. Roberts: I am not going to give way. It is, no doubt, a pure coincidence that has made these particular people safe in their occupation. The hon. Member also left out one vitally important point, namely, that at the time this union was formed these men could only join the A.E.U. under that class of membership which is devoted to completely unskilled men and in which the benefits are practically nil.I believe this is known as Class 5A—I have tried to instruct myself on behalf of my constituents. That was the reason why the other trade union was formed. They could not get into the A.E.U., which would not have them except as unskilled workers. This other trade union was an organisation formed either of men who had been trained during the war, skilled workers in training centres, or else ex-airmen. Today it consists to the extent of almost 80 per cent. of ex-Service men.
Just before the General Election, attention was paid to this organisation by the Labour Party. Speakers, including the Lord Privy Seal, addressed a large gathering, including all the leaders of this union, and made them so enthusiastic about working class unity that they agreed that they had made a mistake in the past, and they applied to the T.U.C. and the Labour Party for membership. That was just before the Election. They applied as I say to the T.U.C. With a licence from the T.U.C. to be skilled, and to be employed, then one is all right, whatever the name of the trade union is. What happened? The matter was referred to the A.E.U. and to several other trade unions which were affected. The application to the T.U.C. was turned down—after the election. I would ask the Minister of Labour to recognise that this matter affects my constituents vitally, and to tell me how one gets into the T.U.C. How can an organisation get into the T.U.C? What determines affiliation? What are the rules? Is the decision purely arbitrary? Are there any rules an organisation can follow to ensure that it will be accepted? [Laughter.]What I have been saying is serious, although I may have made the mistake of putting it to hon. Members unseriously. It concerns the livelihood of these people.
The industry to which I am referring is a new one—servicing aircraft—and it is a highly skilled branch of engineering. The position of the trade union is that it still recruits members, who are loyal to it. It represents in civil aviation approximately 80 per cent. of the trade unionists—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] Oh, yes—of those employed by the civil aviation corporations. Will the Minister carry out a secret ballot at the civil aviation airports among the civilian workers concerned, and announce in this House the result? Will he take the views of the men concerned about the union to which they wish to belong? I will be content and I will give way to him if he will give me that undertaking.

Mr. Isaacs: How can I give the hon. Member a promise to do what I have no authority to do?

Mr. Roberts: The Minister has authority, and the civil aviation corporations are quite willing to do it. My


information is that only the advice of the-Minister of Labour prevents them from doing it. This, I should say, is not a political union.
I come back to the case of my two constituents. One man was a branch secretary of this union. He joined, I am informed, the Communist Party and the A.E.U. at the same time. The other remained faithful to this organisation and is under a threat of dismissal—[An HON. MEMBER: "Is he a Liberal?] I do not know what he is—I ask the Minister to say whether the cases which have been cited do not reinforce our argument that this matter should be looked into? It is a matter the facts of which ought to be made public, by a proper inquiry set up by the Government.

Mr. Bowles: On a point of Order. The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brown) and other Members have also said they are demanding an inquiry. In this Amendment, Mr. Speaker, there is no reference to an inquiry. I am wondering whether the right Amendment has been read from the Chair, because there is no suggestion in it of an inquiry.

Mr. Roberts: I ask the Minister whether he will meet us by promising an inquiry of the sort I have suggested. I am one of those who believe that the function of trade unionism is changing and that it will continue to change as industries are nationalised. No doubt the position of the trade unions in Russia is very interesting, but it is very different from what it is in this country. If the trade unions are to give constructive help in the production drive, and in preventing industrial disputes in the future, as well as in creating the best conditions for the workers. I am sure there has to be a change in the attitude and in the position of trade unions. It will be a change which will give the trade unions a greater and more important position, but it will have to face the difficulty of the closed shop. Therefore I ask the Minister whether he can meet us in this matter.

6.47 p.m.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): The hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) did, in the last half-dozen words of his speech come back to the subject of this afternoon's Debate. He ended with the words used in the opening

Speech, "the closed shop." The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. W. J. Brawn) reminded us that when he put a question to me a little time back about the closed shop I asked him what he meant by it. This afternoon he has told us what he meant by the closed shop. Strangely enough, however, the hon. Member never mentioned the particular kind of closed shop which has caused most of the misery and suffering in this country for years past, and that is the shop which is closed by the arbitrary employer, who says, "I will not have a trade unionist in my shop." There are some still, but not so many as there used to be. That is what we always knew as the closed shop in trade unionism. On the other hand, reference to a firm which was recognised as employing trade unionists to the limit was to a "trade union shop" or "trade union house." Naturally, when the hon. Member referred to a closed shop I wondered whether he was talking about the shop which was closed by the employer against the worker. There are other systems of the closed shop. There is the kind of closed shop brought about by the creation of the so-called Foremen's and Staff Mutual Benefit Society. There you get, not the shop but the avenues of promotion closed. A worker can be promoted to be a foreman, provided he joins the Foremen's Mutual Benefit Association. [Interruption.]Perhaps if they pay attention some of the hon. Gentlemen opposite who have never worked in a workshop in their lives may learn something. [Interruption.]

Sir William Darling: rose—

Mr. Isaacs: I have listened to every word of everybody else's speech without interruption, although on one or two occasions it needed a bit of doing. Let me complete my sentence. The point is that the applicant was told, "Yes, you can join the Foremen's and Staff Mutual Benefit Society if you want this job," but when he got the rules, of the association he found that it was a condition of membership that he should not belong to any trade union. Is that not part of the closed shop principle?

Mr. W. J. Brown: rose—

Mr. Isaacs: I did not interrupt the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Will the Minister allow me? I gave way a good many times when I was speaking. I am much obliged for what he has said, but if he is opposed to the closed shop in the sense of a shop being closed against trade unionism, which is how I understand him, how on earth does he justify the fact that his own Government will not allow a policeman to belong to a union?

Mr. Isaacs: We shall deal with these points as we come to them. Here is another aspect of the closed shop. How many hon. Members opposite know, as some hon. Members on this side know, that there are many firms where one can get a job but on the understanding that one participates in the firms superannuation scheme. One is compelled to have a pension. That is very nice, but when one joins the pension fund, one finds that it is open to non-union members only. There are all these dodges. This Amendment does not ask for an inquiry or a Royal Commission although several hon. Members have ended their speeches with a plea for a Royal Commission. It asks for an indication of the Government's policy in these matters and I propose to deal with that aspect of the matter as I go along.
So many interesting things have been said, coming as they did from certain quarters of the House, that I was a little surprised, and, indeed, doubted my ears when we heard some of them. The mover of the Amendment said that he believed in 100 per cent. trade unionism as a legitimate aim but that it was the compulsion employed by trade union officials against workers who did not join that worried him. I assure the House that it is not the trade union official who makes a fuss about the non-union man but the other workmen in the shop. We heard from another hon. Member a plea for liberty and freedom, but is the attitude to be that the non-unionist is to be free to do what he likes while the trade unionist has to do what he does not like? There is no reason why a man should be compelled to work with another, if he does not want to. He is free to leave. We have had lawyers speaking about this, but they did not clear my mind on the point. I am not a lawyer but I believe, in relation to conspiracy, that what one man has a right to do on. his own, becomes a conspiracy if two men take part

in it. I know something about the Conspiracy Act. If one man has the right to say, "I will not work with that fellow," and has the right to walk out, so have all the others. What has been the circumstances? As the years have gone by, we have seen the trade union movement grow from strength to strength, and I ask any hon. Member whether he can honestly say that it has ever injured this country in the slightest degree. The growth of collective bargaining since the 1914–18 war up to now, has been of tremendous advantage to the country. I have known too many instances in which employers vigorously opposed their offices, firms or factories becoming trade union, but when it happened, they recognised it as an accomplished fact and agreed to meet the union and to make an agreement. Thereafter causes of dispute have, I will not say disappeared because they are not likely completely to disappear, but declined considerably.
After the 1914–18 war, in 15 months we lost 38 million working days in strikes. There were many small unions. An hon. Member has pleaded for the small unions and has been arguing against the existence of the large unions, but the large union has brought with it a sense of responsibility, discipline and organisation, which has offset many of the difficulties experienced in connection with the small unions. Instead of 38 million working days lost in the days when there were scores of unions and firms objecting to trade unionism, we have with our new outlook lost something under 3,500,000 working days in the same period after the 1939–45 war. I admit that many of these working days are lost on account of unofficial strikes, and the trade union movement has to re-examine its constitution, powers and authority to make sure that it can more effectively regulate its arrangements for consultations with the employers, and bring about a system of affairs where a dispute can be tackled far more quickly and thus avoid stoppages of work.
The hon. Member for Rugby said he had no use whatever for the non-unionist. He said that the closed shop was bad for the trade union movement, and that trade unionism meant the collective securing of individual rights. How can we go on with the collective securing of individual rights, if any individual has the


right to stand up and wreck the collective securing of those things? There are one or two other matters to which the hon. Member for Rugby referred. He referred to the T.U.C. at Brighton and to the trade union leaders, and also to the attitude taken by the trade unions. Knowing some of the T.U.C. leaders as he has done for many years—having crossed swords with many of them, and perhaps not loving many of them—the hon. Member for Rugby will admit that they are a capable body of men. The general council of the T.U.C. are men in high esteem in the trade union movement and their position in this matter is to their credit and not their discredit. He also said that the T.U.C. is a queer organisation and consists of a queer gathering of craft unions, industrial unions and general unions. So it does. The hon. Member aptly and correctly described the difference between those types of union. Here we have in this country these three separate groups—often with ideas very different one from another—working successfully in an organisation such as the T.U.C. which has nothing to equal it throughout the world, an organisation which, under its own constitution and machinery, is able to adjust differences between the trade unions. Some of us remember that the hon. Member has always been against the Government and has always enjoyed himself in that position, but his enjoyment does not always mean that he is right. Maybe in this case he knows he is wrong, and is having his bit of fun.
I must refer to the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe). If he will forgive me for saying so, I felt that for a learned counsel who with such distinction—and I say this with the greatest sincerity—upheld the credit of British justice in courts overseas quite recently, he was trying on this occasion to flog himself into a bit of a temper. He looked very angry once or twice, but I do not think he felt anger in his heart. He talked about the exclusive right to employment, and the right to earn a living, and a necessity for obtaining the consent of the Transport and General Workers' Union. He knows that is not right. Anyhow, one has to get the consent of some Bar association before one can plead at the Bar in our courts. There is a double-barrelled trade union there. I consulted a friend of mine who is a barrister and asked his advice. He

Said "You must not come to me, but send in that case through a solicitor—

Lieut.-Commander Braithwaite: The shop steward.

Mr. Isaacs: Do not let me be led into saying that the Solicitors Society are the shop stewards of the Bar Association. That would never do. The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about paying lip service, and uttering pious platitudes, or words to that effect. I want to assure this House and the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the trade union movement with which I have been associated for so many years—and from which now I am severed, I do not know for how long—has a reputation for freedom. It does desire freedom. One of my hon. Friends behind me said a few moments ago that we have to think of the greatest good of the greatest number. If a manufacturer has large and valuable machinery running in his shop and somebody comes to him and says, "I have just dropped a piece of grit into your main bearing", do you think he would say, "It does not matter, let it run?" He would stop the machines and get the grit out. In exactly the same way, one mischievous anti-union worker in a shop can be the piece of grit that can destroy the whole organisation.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman put in a plea for the small trade unions. He was very bady misled when he picked the Chemical Workers' Union and Mr. Edwards as an example. The trouble is that all of us on this side know these people and know the organisations. As a matter of fact, the headquarters of this organisation was in my constituency, and its general secretary was one of my supporters, but that does not prevent one from saying that this is an organisation which was once a break-away union. And this answers another point—it was once a break-away onion but, to use a modern phrase, if has worked its passage back. It has been decided that it has established its rights, that it has played the game, and so on, and although there was some opposition it has been brought back into the scope of the Trades Union Congress. But believe me, if it goes on as it is going on, it will cause any amount of trouble all over the place. The suggestion that we should take them to our hearts, and look upon them as an


example of good conduct is a little bit of a mistake
The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the mining industry. He said that men would depend upon officials for their livelihood. That is not so. No official of the Mineworkers' Union will have the right to say that a man shall or shall not work. Believe me, membership of a trade union is a most cherished thing. People who want membership of a trade union, in the great number of organisations that I know, must make a personal appearance before the local committee, and the local committee decides whether they shall or shall not come in. In the days of the craft unions, obviously it depended upon whether they were good craftsmen; in the days of the general union, it depends upon whether they are prepared to say that they will observe the rules and constitution of the union. There is not one union in the mining industry. Every one runs away with the idea that there is only one union, but there are four—the Managers' Association, the Deputies' Association, the National Union of Mineworkers, and the Association of Scientific Workers. To say that union officials can prevent men from getting a card, makes it look as if these unions are in being to prevent people coming in, but that is not the case at all.
The hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) spoke about the "tyranny against which we protest." Some of us feel that the hon. and learned Gentleman "doth protest too much." We are a little doubtful sometimes, when he speaks in these forceful terms about the rights and freedom of the workers, whether there is not behind it all, a bitter opposition to the trade unionist, which may not come out in his words, but comes out in his gestures and manners. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is my opinion and I express it. He referred to the Smithfield case, and drew certain deductions from it, but I ask him if he would be good enough to read the report of Sir John Forster, who conducted the inquiry at my request, and get the real facts about this case, instead of using it as an argument against the case we are putting to-day. He talked about unions not affiliated to the T.U.C. not being considered worthy of affiliation, or something of the sort. Again there is an excellent example to refute that. One of the biggest

of the professional trade unions in this country is the National Amalgamation of Local Government Officers.

Mr. H. Strauss: I quoted that example.

Mr. Isaacs: All right, let us see how much you know about it, then. You say that they are outside the pale. Do you know—

Earl Winterton: "You."

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Isaacs: I am sorry. I am perfectly certain that you, Mr. Speaker, and the House will accept my apology if I slip up in a case like that. I am trying to point out that the N.A.L.G.O. is not affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, and will not become affiliated. It does not want to be affiliated, but it works in the closest possible harmony with the T.U.C, because it is on one of the joint committees dealing with matters connected with local government service. I merely say that to show that there is no feeling in the T.U.C. against it.
A point is being made today about possible reactions to this attitude on the closed shop. I have referred to the fact that we have got the finest industrial relationship in this world I do not mind where you look or where you go, there is not a country in which there is a better relationship than there is here between the employers and the workers, taking it by and large, or between industry and the Government, whether it is the present Government or any other Government. I can recall that when Mr. Chamberlain was Prime Minister before the war, he asked the Trades Union Congress General Council to meet him, in his room in the old building, to consult with them and discuss the best means of cooperation in the pursuance of the war. He had no hesitation in asking them; he knew he could rely upon them, and the Council had no hesitation in giving him assurances. This relationship and cooperation between government and industry is not something that has just come into operation. It has been there, whatever the political colour of the Government, and will be there in the future, whatever the political colour of the Government. What we are worried about is that trade union organisation must be maintained if there is to be that effective relationship in industry, and between industry and the Government.
We have found, in looking at some of these strikes and disputes that have happened lately, the real dangers of break-away organisations. It is all very well to say that if a man cannot get satisfaction in his union, he has no rights, and so on. That is not a fact. If a man is dealt with by his branch, he can appeal from the branch to the district, from the district to the executive, and from the executive to the annual general meeting. Not many cases go so far. But if every individual with a grouse is to have the right to break away and form another union, where shall we get to? The trade union movement will be broken up into bits and pieces and nobody, I am sure, wants to see that.

Mr. H. Strauss: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with this point? A man whose application is rejected by a trade union, who is refused membership, has no appeal to anybody, and, if it is the sole union in the industry, he is refused the possibility of employment in his industry without any right of appeal at all.

Mr. Isaacs: The point is, how does he get into that industry at all? Where does he come from? I can understand a man who has never worked in an industry coming along and saying, "That looks a decent sort of job, I will make an application for it," but is that to be all? The hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment ran off a lot of stuff just now about things of which I have heard nothing. He surely does not expect me to answer about two cases in his constituency—

Mr. Byers: What about the case of Throssel?

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot attempt to answer on an individual case, without having had a chance to examine all the evidence.

Mr. Byers: There is no appeal.

Mr. Isaacs: Please let me make the point I am trying to make. The hon. Member for North Dorset dealt with the case of a man who wants to join a union, but has not the opportunity. Let us see the position as it is in each case. What sort of fellow is to be admitted? The union of which I was an official may have an application from a man who has never worked in the trade, and does not know enough about the business. Or the answer might be "We have 250 unemployed in this branch." Who is to act

as a tribunal to say whether the union shall take that man or not? Unions which are out to increase their membership, do not reject applications out of the whim of the moment. It will probably be found deep down, or on the surface, that there is a great deal of feeling against the man concerned. If we might make a test case of this between ourselves, I would not mind gambling that, by the time all the evidence comes out, something will come out of which the hon. Member his not been told.

Mr. Byers: Is that a bet?

Mr. Isaacs: We will not register it here, with Mr. Speaker looking on. I speak about trade unionism, not from the point of view of those who stand outside and look in. However good their intentions, they cannot understand the feelings and ideals of the workman in the shop, unless they work with him. The hon. Member for Rugby, who has a trade union record, approaches the subject in different circumstances, from the angle of the more cloistered Civil Service office, where they do not talk quite so bluntly and plainly as do the men in the shop.

Mr. W. J. Brown: If there is any suggestion that civil servants have a more limited, or less forceful, vocabulary than printers. I repudiate it.

Mr. Isaacs: I accepted the challenge from the hon. Member for North Dorset, but I will not accept that one. We have been asked what is the attitude of the Government on these matters. Please remember that this is a protest against the closed shop. We have been asked this very vital and important question about the attitude that only one union should be recognised. That is not the Trades Union Congress attitude. It is laid down by the Trades Union Congress that there shall not be a complete and absolute right of recognition in any industry to any one union. They will not say this class of worker must go into this union, and this class into another union. The American A.F. of L. does 1hat, but the Trades Union Congress does not. The Trades Union Congress has its own special committee, its disputes committee, which settles each case on its merits, and, as a rule, to the complete satisfaction of the unions that bring the cases before them. We have instances of that kind under notice at the moment, but perhaps it would not be wise to refer to them.
It is interesting to note that legislation has been passed by this House which has given absolute statutory recognition to certain trade unions in industry. It is in the Railways Act of 1921, which was brought in by the Coalition Government of Mr. Lloyd George, and introduced by Sir Eric Geddes, then Minister of Transport. The relevant Section states:
'For the purpose of giving effect to, the foregoing provisions of this part of the Act…schemes shall be made and may, from time to time, be varied by a committee consisting of six representatives of the General Managers' Committee of the Railway Clearing House, and six representatives of the National Union of Railwaymen, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, and the Railway Clerks Association.
Those are the unions which the railways must recognise—and Lord help a breakaway union there. We have been asked about nationalised industries, and what we are doing in that respect. This Government are opposed to putting into any legislation provisions as to which is to be the union, and what union is to be recognised. In the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act, Section 46 says:
'It shall be the duty of the Board to enter into consultation with organisations appearing to them to represent substantial proportions of the persons in the employment of the Board, or of any class of such persons.
Further, in the Civil Aviation Act, Section 19, there is a very similar provision:
It shall be the duty of the three corporations, except in so far as the corporation are satisfied that adequate machinery exists for achieving the purposes of this subsection, to seek consultation with any organisation appearing to the corporation to be appropriate with a view to the conclusion between the corporation and that organisation of such agreements. …
We have been asked what the attitude of the Government is in these matters. It is that we believe that we can trust industry. While there may be a little breaking out here and there, no doubt on the part of the employers as well as of the workers, we believe industry wants to find

agreements by which it can work with the least possible disruption. I know it is sometimes said that it is the trade union officials who cause strikes. Believe me, there are more strikes prevented by trade union officials than are caused by them, and they would be very much happier without the worry of strikes. If the question of the closed shop is to be dealt with, it should be looked at in its full implications. If we are to trust industry, we must really trust industry. We believe that the method we have adopted in those two Acts, of saying "You must enter into negotiation with those who, in your opinion, represent this industry" is the right attitude. It is not the duty of the Government to step in and cause to be called into consultation this or that union, a pukkha union, or even a break away union.

We must oppose the Amendment be cause it contains a suggestion that the Trades Union government—the Trades Union Congress—[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear."] I am glad of those cheers, or jeers, whichever they are, because they give me an opportunity of going on for one more minute. Hon. Members must not be led away I say by any bunkum about the domination by the Trades Union Congress. It has no domination over any trade union. It has not the power to give an order to any trade union, but can give counsel and advice, help and assistance. It has no power to give direction, and it cannot instruct on rules. It is purely an advisory body. Whatever ship of the tongue I may have made, it gives me the opportunity of saying that the Trades Union Congress is as free, unfettered, and uncontrolled as Parliament itself. It is the Parliament of Labour, and in that way it will carry on its good work.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 155: Noes, 316

Main Question again proposed.

CHILD CARE

7.31 p.m.

Mr. Wilson Harris: I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:
but humbly regret that no mention is made in the Gracious Speech of any intention to give effect to the recommendations contained in the recent Report of the Care of Children Committee.

I, and those associated with me, have placed this Amendment on the Order Paper because we do in fact feel deep regret, deep concern and, let me add, considerable astonishment, at the omission from the Gracious Speech of any declaration of intention on the part of His Majesty's Government to implement the recommendations of the arresting and disquieting Report on the care of children which has been produced by what is com-


monly known as the Curtis Committee. There are, of course, various reasons that may be adduced for this omission. They are all of them bad, and I have no doubt all of them will be put forward by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal when he winds up this Debate. It will be said, in the first place, that this is the kind of issue which falls between three stools, one of them occupied by the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education, one of them, suitably reinforced, by the Minister of Health, and one of them by the Secretary of State for the Home Department. It will be said that interdepartmental discussions are involved and that it needs protracted and arduous negotiations to get three such eminent persons into the same room at the same time. It will be said, therefore, that necessarily there must be delay in dealing with this matter; also it will be argued next that this Report was only published in the middle of October and, therefore, it is unreasonable to expect any decision to be taken regarding it by the time of the Gracious Speech on 12th November.
Also I would suggest that any Minister with half a mind and half a conscience—I am not suggesting that any such Minister exists—after a couple of hours perusal of this Report, would have realised that the conditions existing were so grave that immediate action on the part of the Government was imperative, and that in order to allay public anxiety an immediate announcement to that effect by the Government was equally imperative. The third explanation, which I hope is the right one, because it is the least unsatisfactory of the three, is that, after all, the Gracious Speech is not comprehensive and it does not follow because this matter is not mentioned that it will not be brought forward, but that it would be absurd to expect so trifling a matter as the welfare of 125,000 children to take its place beside, for example, a measure of such dominating importance as one to enable local authorities to operate civic restaurants. But I do not want to sound any controversial note.
I believe that in all essentials the House, in all parts, is at one on this matter. We have read the Report, or we have read summaries of its contents, and there must be a universal feeling that, at the very first moment when action is possible, it must be taken to put an end to

conditions which ought not to continue for a single day longer. At the same time, I am bound to say that unless the right hon. Gentleman can give us clear assurances at the end of this Debate that such legislation as may be needed to implement this Report will be introduced and carried into law during this Session—and I most profoundly hope that he can—we shall be compelled to carry this matter to an issue in the Division Lobby. This Report has revealed to the world conditions which have aroused feelings of horror, indignation and shame So far as we in this House are concerned, the feeling of shame must predominate, because in this matter we have a responsibility which we cannot evade. However far removed we may be from these children by ranges of officials, matrons of institutes, by inspectors and local committees, and by Ministers in Whitehall, at the end, in a democratic parliamentary society, the responsibility comes back to us. Hon. Members cannot talk one day of the supremacy of Parliament and the next day repudiate the responsibility which flows inevitably from that supremacy. Therefore, we have a very heavy and clear duty resting upon us as we consider this matter.
I wish to make one point perfectly clear at the outset in order to avoid criticisms which otherwise might be put forward later. I am not suggesting for a moment that the picture conveyed in the Report is uniformly bad. I am not claiming, even, that it is mainly bad. I would like to make that very clear by quoting the verdict of the Committee on that point. Their considered conclusion, which I will abbreviate, is on these lines:
By far the greater number of Homes were, within the limits of their staffing, accommodation and administrative arrangements, reasonably well run from the standpoint of physical care, and in other ways the child has more material advantages than could have been given to him in the average poor family.
But later it says:
We found in fact many places where the standard of child care was no better, except in respect of disciplinary methods, than that of, say, 30 years ago; and we found a widespread and deplorable shortage of the right kind of staff, personally qualified and trained, to provide the child with a substitute for home background. The result in many Homes was a lack of personal interest in, and affection for, the children, which we found shocking
I think we shall find that very statement


itself reasonably shocking. We cannot say, "Well, after all, 55 per cent, of the children are reasonably well treated and only 45 per cent. can be called badly treated." We cannot strike an average on those two figures. You cannot average human beings in that way. As long as 45 per cent., 35 per cent. or even 10 per cent. are undergoing the treatment depicted in this Report, then I say we have a right to come here and call on the Government to indicate that they will take action which will prevent at an early date all continuance of such conditions.
Very important matters are involved in the recommendations of this Report. Let me recall for a moment how this Committee originated. We all remember with a good deal of horror what is known as the case of Dennis O'Neill. He was a boy who was boarded out from Newport, Monmouthshire, first of all in a very happy private home in Herefordshire, then in another very happy private home in Herefordshire, and finally he and his brother were boarded out in a home in Shropshire. There he underwent such treatment at the hands of his foster father that he died. The foster father today is undergoing a sentence of six years' imprisonment which, in the circumstances, I think, can hardly be regarded as excessive. It was as a result of the suspicion which was aroused that conditions might be existing, not perhaps which would lead to that tragic result, but which were sufficiently painful and tragic in themselves, that this Committee came into being. It was then that the right hon. Gentleman who is now Lord Privy Seal and the then Ministers of Health and Education appointed this Committee to inquire into existing methods of caring for children who, from loss of parents or any cause whatever, are deprived of normal home life. I understand that these classes are technically known as deprived children. There seems to me to be a great deal of poignancy in that description. They are deprived of all the affection and shelter and protection of home and of all those qualities of home life in which character develops naturally and satisfactorily, and they become wards of the State. It becomes the business of the State not to provide another home life, because that can never be done, but something, at any rate, that can be regarded as a reasonable substitute for

the home life of which, through no fault of their own but through the fault of their parents, they have so unhappily been deprived.
In regard to that, I will take only one other quotation from the Report. Is it the case that such conditions do exist? Have the inquiries of the Committee tended to allay our anxieties or accentuate them? I think that, on the whole, they can be said to have done both. We have many pictures here, and I wish to emphasise this, of almost ideal surroundings created for these unhappy children, and let me also pay a very warm tribute to the staffs of these institutions, who have come under a very real shadow after the O'Neill case and the revelations of this Report. There are a large number of devoted men and women, particularly women, who are doing their utmost to supply to these children what they have been deprived of because it cannot be supplied in their own homes. Again, I quote this from the Report:
One Nursery which was structurally linked to the Public Assistance institution had sunk to the lowest level of child care which has come under our notice. There were 32 children on the register, eight of whom were sick children. These were being nursed in a small ward adjacent to the infirmary adult sick ward. They were in charge of assistant nurses who were at the same time nursing the sick adults in the main ward, in which were aged and chronic sick (one patient had advanced cancer of the face), a mentally defective child, and a child with chicken pox. In the children's ward was an eight year old mentally defective girl, who sat most of the day on a chair commode, because, the nurses said, 'she was happy that way.' She could not use her arms or legs. There were two babies with rickets clothed in cotton frocks, cotton vests and dilapidated napkins, no more than discoloured cotton rags. The smell in this room was dreadful. A premature baby lay in an opposite ward alone. This ward was very large and cold. The healthy children were housed in the ground floor corrugated hutment which had been once the old union casual ward. The day room was large and bare and empty of all toys. The children fed, played and used their pots in this room. They ate from cracked enamel plates, using the same mug for milk and soup. They slept in another corrugated hutment in old broken black iron cots, some of which had their sides tied up with cord. The mattresses were fouled and stained. On inquiry there did not appear to be any available stocks of clothes to draw on and it was said by one of the assistant nurses that 'everything was at the laundry and did not come back.' The children wore ankle length calico or flannelette frocks and petticoats and had no knickers. Their clothes were not clean. Most of them had lost their


shoes; those who possessed shoes had either taken them off to play with or were wearing them tied to their feet with dirty string. Their faces were clean; their bodies in some cases were unwashed and stained.
These are the children for whom we as a House assume responsibility. That is not a typical case, I admit, and there is a footnote stating that, as a result of the visit of the Committee, substantial improvements have been made, but these conditions had been existing for an indefinite time, and, but for the visit of the Committee, they might have gone on existing for an indefinite time longer; they might in fact have been existing still. I say that this is a cause of shame for every hon. Member of this House, when we are ourselves responsible for an existing situation such as that.
These children, and there are 125,000 of them, are, in the majority of cases, destitute children for whom the Minister of Health is answerable in this House, because they are mostly housed in what used to be called workhouses. There a large number of children who come under the auspices of the Home Office—and let me say at once that we make a great mistake if we regard children under the care of the Home Office simply from the point of view of delinquency. These children have, in some cases, been before the juvenile courts, and of these there are very many whom I think are more sinned against than sinning. I am not one of those who claim that there is nothing wrong with any child, and that he is only misunderstood. I do not say that. Nor shall I try to solve the mystery of original sin, which has been argued about by theologians as long as theologians have been arguing at all—and they have been arguing for a very long time. It does seem that there is a hard core of children who seem, for one reason or another, to be inherently evil—cruel, destructive, dishonest or indecent. A good many, I say, are more sinned against than sinning, and, over and above these, there is a large number of children who come before the courts, not through any fault of their own, but because the home is not suitable for them, and they are sent by the courts into an approved school of some kind. In very many of the cases mentioned in the Report, children came from broken homes not fit to live in.
This is not the time for any detailed discussion of the proposals for legislation arising out of the Report. I trust that

there will be another opportunity for that, and I am confident that the Leader of the House, with the customary generosity for which he is so conspicuous on Thursday afternoons, will realise that we cannot discuss a Report of 140,000 words, culminating in 62 recommendations, in the time that should be between 7 and 10 p.m., and is, in fact, between 7.30 and 10 p.m., on an Amendment to the Address. There is only one question on which I want to say a few words and it is the vital question of which Government Department should be made ultimately responsible for these children. The Curtis Report itself was unanimous on one thing, with which I imagine we all agree, and that was that there should be no more divided responsibility between three or four different Departments. What the Report insists upon is that, one Department shall be responsible for these various categories of unhappy children. It must, most clearly, be either the Home Office, the Ministry of Education, or the Ministry of Health. I myself think, that this is obviously a question on which reasonable argument is abundantly possible. It is easy to make out a case for one Department or another. It is not a case where all the arguments are on one side and none on the other, but there are some considerations which I should like to lay before the House. I imagine it will be agreed, that, whatever the personal merits of the Minister of Health, he has his hands reasonably full at the moment. The right hon. Gentleman still has several more houses to run up, and still more discussions, which may be protracted, with the medical profession, so that I cannot suppose that either he or his Department have very much time to give to new responsibilities transferred to them from two other Departments.
The case for making the Ministry of Education the responsible Department is a good deal stronger. It is argued, and with a show, at any rate, of superficial reason, that it is right and desirable that the Department which is responsible for the children's education should be responsible for their whole life, and that the children should be integrated into the life of the education authorities in the locality. That argument appears to me to apply precisely in the opposite direction. I think it would be a fatal mistake to mix up educational life with home life. It does not happen in the case of ordinary chil-


dren. Every normal child lives up to the age of 14 years in two worlds—the world of home and the world of school—and it is extraordinarily important for them that both of these worlds should exist, and that they should have a home life, in which they have opportunities to mingle with brothers and sisters, or, in the case of adopted children, with other adopted children, and should have a background providing, so to speak, a kind of shelter from the stresses of school to which they can come back if they are in trouble at school. Though it is perfectly true that Ministries in Whitehall matter very little directly to the individual child, I feel it would be very much better to have one Minister responsible for making homes for these children into which they can go to be dealt with as ordinary human beings, while another Minister is responsible for their education, dealing with them simply as pupils.
They will go from the adopted homes, the boarding out homes and the institutions to the local schools, just as every other child does. For that reason alone, I shall be sorry to see the Ministry of Education the operative Department in this connection. But there are more positive reasons that influence me. The Home Office has a long and creditable record in the matter of administering homes and approved homes for children. Some hon. Members will remember, and others, more fortunate, will not, the Children's Act introduced and passed by Viscount Samuel, then Mr. Herbert Samuel, in the year 1908. It was one of the notable pieces of social legislation placed on the Statute Book by the great Liberal Government of that year.
That Act has been admirably administered by the Home Office, which has an excellent Children's Branch actuated conspicuously by human sympathy. In recent years, the Children's Branch has been directed by a very able and experienced official, whose name, in accordance with established practice, I will not mention—even though it happens to be the same as my own. I feel that the children's interest could not be better served than by the Children's Branch of the Home Office, and that there is no better organisation on which to build some more elaborate and ambitious structure. For whatever department takes over this responsibility, it will be for them to set

up new standards of accommodation and of treatment, and to indicate to the world generally what we expect to do for these children and what we expect to give to these children. It will be answerable to this House and to the Home Secretary if there is any default either at the centre or the circumference, in the discharge of this, I would almost say, sacred duty
With regard to the localities, it would seem that the Report is very wise to recommend an ad hoccommittee of a county borough or a county council rather than a sub-committee of some existing authority such as the Education or Public Assistance. But I realise, of course, that that is essentially a case for argument.
Let me come back now to the very crux of what I have to say. It is that, when conditions such as are demonstrated in this Report are shown to exist, it is essential that there should be immediate action. As practical men and women, we have to view this subject on the basis of administrative procedure and machinery. But let us not forget that, essentially, it is an intensely human problem, that we are dealing with 125,000 children who are entirely in our hands, and who can do nothing for themselves. When we remember our own responsibility, that, surely, ought to make some appeal to us. We are well accustomed to various bodies of men and women—old age pensioners, ex-Servicemen, housewives, and so on—coming down to this House to make representations, to unfold grievances and to put forward constructive proposals. That, of course, is right and proper, and part of our democratic system. But these children have no way of making their voices heard. They are mute, inarticulate and suffering, as no one can doubt who reads this report; not acute physical suffering, but perpetual mental repression. That is what has happened and what will go on happening unless administrative and legislative action is taken to create better conditions in which such things cannot take place.
This Report is full of haunting pictures—of normal healthy children shut up with mental defectives; in one case with a revolting Mongolian child, in another, with a hydrocephalic idiot behind a screen; in another, with a blind imbecile boy making hideous noises day and night; children, condemned often to take their meals in complete silence;


playing in walled asphalted yards;; crowding round any visitor who may come in their excitement that anyone could take an interest in them—crushed, confined, repressed and frustrated. With these pictures imprinted on our minds and with the cold, damning descriptions of this Report before our eyes, how can we not demand of the Government that they shall take action and pass, during this Session, the necessary legislation into law to create new conditions in which these children can grow up and live very different fives? How can the Government reject this demand? I believe that the whole House is with us when we appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to get up when this Debate is over and to say that, whatever may be the crush of other legislation, this legislation, at any rate, cannot wait.
There is a great deal in the Gracious Speech that could wait without any great detriment to the country or its population. But these things are going on now, and these conditions are existing before our eyes at the present time. They could be changed if the Government would take the necessary action. Therefore, I appeal for categorical assurances which will put all questions at rest. I believe that when the right hon. Gentleman gets up to reply that we shall get these assurances. But at this stage of the Debate I beg to move the Amendment.

7.56 p.m.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: I beg to second the Amendment.
I feel bound to say that I do not regard this matter as, in the slightest degree, a party issue. We are not making this attack upon the Government because they are a Labour Government, but because they are the only people who can, in this instance, take action. We are all, as Members of Parliament, as people connected with local authorities, or as individual citizens, heavily to blame for the present state of affairs. So this cannot be construed as a party attack on the Government. As I say, it is an effort to exert the greatest pressure at our command to get the people who can do something to take the necessary steps. The Amendment moved by my hon. Friend and one that was on the Order Paper in my name, express our regret at the absence from the Gracious Speech of any reference to

the terrible situation disclosed by the Curtis Report.
I can scarcely believe that the Government are unaware of the grave shock which this Report gave to public opinion, or of the deep sense of disquiet, guilt and unhappiness felt by every section of the population, rich and poor, men and women. They cannot be unaware of the great disappointment felt by everybody at this omission. It was not always like this. As lately as 31st October, the Home Secretary, at the end of a long barrage of questions about publication of the evidence in this Report, said:
We are dealing here with a very urgent matter, on which I think the country is very deeply disturbed, and I am anxious to do nothing that should delay effective action being taken."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Thursday, 31st October; Vol. 428, c. 780.]
There are various forms of action which can be taken—administrative and legislative. It would appear from the Gracious Speech that the Government propose to take neither. They ought at least to have said that they would give consideration to this Report, but they remain silent. Therefore, I shall have great pleasure in joining my hon. Friends in the Division Lobby tonight unless the Lord Privy Seal promises the appropiate legislation during this Session, and the greatest amount of administrative action.
Time is short, and I do not propose to treat this as a Committee stage discussion on the Curtis Report, and I will try not to weary the House, but I must paint the picture to some extent as it has been disclosed. There is a hotchpotch of multifarious activities of numerous Government Departments dealing with children in very many different ways. I think my right hon. Friend was right in not overstressing the horrors of the picture. There are, in this Report, plenty of horrors, but I firmly believe that it would be unfair to take the horrors as representative of the general situation.
I am not so much moved by the horrors, or by the ghastly paragraph 144, part of which my hon. Friend read to the House; I believe you have only to focus public attention on those Dickensian scenes to get them remedied. There are those awful pictures of conglomerations in workhouse wards, the sick and the old, the mentally defective and the sane, all mixed together, dirty clothes and unwashed children, and asphalt yards. But


I am much more moved by the paragraphs that deal in more moderate tones with the lack of background and of private life, the fact that the children in institutions have nowhere to put what my children call their "treasures," the fact that there is lack of stability. All that is a far greater condemnation of our attitude of mind than are certain isolated horrors. I would like to read to the House one or two sentences from paragraph 418, part of which my hon. Friend read:
Where establishments fell below a satisfactory standard, the defects were not of harshness, but rather of dirt and dreariness, drab-ness and over-regimentation…The child in these homes was not recognised as an individual with his own rights and possessions, his own life to live, and his own contributon to offer. He was merely one of a large crowd, eating, playing and sleeping with the rest, without any place or possession of his own or any quiet room to which he could retreat. Still more important, he was without the feeling that there was anyone to whom he could turn who was vitally interested in his welfare or who cared for him as a person.
Then comes what to my mind is the most heartrending sentence in the whole Report:
The effect of this on the smaller children was reflected in their behaviour towards visitors, which took the form of an almost pathological clamouring for attention and petting.
That is referred to again in paragraph 477:
The longing for caresses from strangers, so common among little children in homes, is in striking and painful contrast to the behaviour of the normal child of the same age in his parents' home.
Those words come much nearer to bringing tears to my eyes and a sense of guilt to my conscience than the pictures of Dickensian horrors. It is a melancholy, ugly picture. I want to draw the parallel picture. My hon. Friend read out part of paragraph 144, which I hope everybody will read. How did it happen? Were there no inspections? What happened to the inspectors' reports? I will quote from paragraph 399 about inspections:
The criticisms of inspectors on the nursery described in paragraph 144 had effected no improvement at all, although the children were removed to another nursery within two months of our visit.
What happens to the inspectors' reports? How frequently do inspections take place? Those are the questions that come to my

mind. This report is a sorry condemnation of the whole inspection system, and particularly is it a condemnation of those sections of the Ministry of Health which have received the inspectors' reports and have not seen to it that something was done It is partly a condemnation, also, of the Ministry of Education. I shall not take up the time of the House in trying to paint a picture which every hon. Member can see for himself if he will take the trouble to read the Report.
I want to ask two questions. First, why has this situation arisen? I want to give two answers to that question. I think the fundamental thing is that there has been a failure of personal duty, a failure to realise that the lives of these children are not the responsibility of Government Departments or local authorities, but are the responsibility of every man and woman of us and of our fellow citizens. We have become too prone as a civilisation to shuffle off responsibility and say that it is the duty of a local authority or a Government Department. Here we are not concerned with cogs in a machine, we are not concerned even with adult people; we are concerned with people who are helpless and voteless. This is why we do not deal with them—they are voteless and voiceless. If we deal with these questions, it will not bring us great support in our constituencies. Failure to deal with them will not deprive us of votes. That is the shameful thing about it. In parenthesis, I wonder whether there should not be an inquiry into the conditions of life of the aged in public assistance institutions, and another inquiry into conditions in mental institutions. Disquieting thoughts have been raised in my mind. I think we all ought to be here in white sheets. Every citizen of this country ought to recognise that we have salved our consciences by saying that these children were in the hands of public authorities or of Government Departments, and have left it at that.
The second reason why this state of affairs has persisted until today is that we have failed to regard children as individuals. It is a commonplace of political controversy that we accuse hon. Members opposite of tending to regard every citizen as a cog in the machine rather than as an individual and as an immortal soul. I am not going to enter into that contro-


versy, but I am sure every hon. Member will agree that one of our main errors has been this collective approach to the problem of these individuals in the most formative part of their lives. I believe that this organisational approach is doomed to failure. We may make certain improvements to the present system, we may overhaul it, we may get a very good, modern and up-to-date machine for dealing with children, but as long as we deal with them collectively and not as individuals, the systems are doomed to failure, although they may be improvements on the present one.
What children need is something that they cannot get if they are treated collectively. I ask myself what my own children need. They need stability of background. I am sure that is the most important thing in a child's life. It is said that one feels more frightened in a desert when there is nothing round one than one does in a forest where one can get one's back against a tree. The child wants to feel that he ha? his back against something which is permanent, even if that something is not very pleasant. He needs to have something on which he can count. To put a child in a position of uncertainty or lack of stability is the greatest crime one can commit against that child. Children want love; not the love of a series of people at different times in a child's life, but a permanent and continuing love from the same person or persons. This is just another way of saying that we shall be failing in our duty towards these children unless we approximate their conditions of life to those of normal life in a normal home, a home with all its knocks as well as its good points, with all its difficulty and unhappy moments as well as the happy ones. We shall not even have done our duty if we put them in institutions where everything is arranged and ordered, where the children's health is thoroughly cared for, and so on, because then we shall probably unfit them for whatever knocks and hardships of daily life they may meet when they come out. So I repeat that stability of background, and the approximation to normal life, is what we must aim at.
Taking that point of view, I foresee two dangers. A very great stir was caused by the O'Neill case. Here I do think we ought to congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) who

initiated the movement in this House which led to the appointment of the Curtis Committee. A very great stir was caused by that case, and a very great stir, whatever the Government may think, has been caused by this Report. I think that we may very easily have a temporary conversion: that we shall all get very worried, and have a new machine installed, and then go to sleep again, thinking we have dealt with the situation. That is the first of the dangers. The second one is lest we fall into the same mistake as, I think, the members of this Committee have inevitably fallen into—that of laying all the stress on organisation and reorganisation. Of course, organisation is necessary, but in no branch of our national life will the dead hand of bureaucracy be more fatal to what we have in view than in dealing with chidren. I beg the House to bear those two points in mind. There is no simple remedy in the way of reorganisation at our disposal, and there is no permanent remedy. It is a continuing problem, which will be just as urgent so long as there are deprived children left in the world. I am not despising or condemning these proposals for reorganisation. Of course, they are necessary, and I shall have something more to say about that later.
But I believe that the first thing we have to aim at is that each child should have one individual, at least, to look to. I used to stay before the war with a friend of mine in France. She is now dead. They were rich people, and they took a great interest in child welfare. My friend started a maternity home in a neighbouring town, and found that all the illegitimate children were left on her hands, so she begged and borrowed, and scraped money together, and started an orphanage, and just before the war had 300 children there. About 20 years ago she said to me, "I wish you would adopt one of these children and become a sort of godparent, for I wish each child had got someone who will sometimes write to him and visit him." I did. I adopted a little boy. I believe that it made the whole difference to his happiness. They were all happy children on the whole there; but it made him feel he had someone who would take an interest in him. My experience with him made me believe we ought to make a great effort to see that every single deprived child has what I may call, for want of a better word,


a godparent—someone who will visit him at least four times a year, and write to him, and send him presents, and make Christmas a day to stand out in his year, and make his birthday a day that stands out. How many of these children know what a birthday is, or celebrate it in any way whatever?
I think we can do a lot in that way. This country is full of warmhearted, charitable people, who have been impressed by this Report. We ought to cash in on this sense of anxiety aroused by this Report. There will be a great many people who will take an interest in these deprived children. This interest must be kept alive although I have no prescription for doing that. I think that the least that we can do is to keep interest constantly alive in our constituencies, and so cash in on the uneasiness created by this Report. The third thing—and here I turn to organisation again—is this. I agree with my hon. Friend that, of all the Departments, the one that comes out best is the Home Office. I do not think their record is so blameless as my hon. Friend thinks, but I think their record is, comparatively speaking, good. I believe that the Home Office should be the Department responsible for the Government's activities regarding deprived children.
I go a step further. I do not want children to be in the charge of any Department of a great Ministry which has lots of other duties. I believe the solution lies in the setting up of a semi-independent board on the lines of the Unemployment Assistance Board which would, of course, have questions answered for it by a Minister in the House—I suggest the Home Secretary. That is the direction in which our reorganisation should lie. Then, I am most anxious that the bias in all cases should be away from institutional treatment, away from homes, and in favour of boarding out. I fall out with the Committee on recommendation No. 26. I do not see why you should not pay for boarding out children enough to include a certain profit element. I do not see anything dishonourable in people making a little profit out of a child, indeed in most cases, I do not think a penny of that profit would go into the people's pockets; I believe it would go to the child. I cannot understand

that recommendation of the Committee bat, apart from that, I accept their recommendations in broad outline.
The House suspects—and, in my opinion, rightly suspects—appeals to emotion, but I believe this is a case where the heart must rule the head. This is, above all things, an appeal to the heart, and I ask hon. Members not to let their heads damp down their honest emotions. We live in hard and evil days. In the totalitarian world that has come upon us, compassion is at a discount, mercy is almost forgotten, and pity is despised. I believe that if we fail to deal with this situation, and fail to provide every child with a background, it will be an indelible slur on our civilisation. I spent much of the weekend studying this Report and, on Sunday evening, after reading the Report and getting more and more depressed, I went to pay a visit to my youngest daughter aged four months. The contrast was almost unbearable. There was this child, clean, healthy, happy, with the prospects of an affectionate home—if we both survive—until she is grown up. The contrast between her and the wretched children I had been reading about—with even those, if not wretched, background-less children—was almost more than I could bear, and I ask the House to remember that, by some malicious turn of fortune's wheel, any of our children might be put into this condition. I say, "God protect them from it, and may God lead us to do our duty to the helpless."

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: This Debate on the Curtis Report arises this evening technically on an Amendment to the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech. If, however, a Debate on this subject had not arisen in this form, I am sure some other method would have been found by hon. Members on this side of the House of raising this question because, as the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment said, it is a matter which concerns and affects the consciences of all Members of this House.
I do not want to introduce an element of party controversy into the Debate, but in view of what the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson) said, I feel it necessary to point out that the deplorable conditions revealed in the Curtis Report cannot, in fairness, be laid to the charge of the present Government. These conditions


are a relic of the poor law of the past, for which earlier Governments are responsible. Therefore, I do not regard it as a legitimate matter for criticism that this matter has been omitted from the King's Speech, for assurances have been given that this Report, which was only published in September, is receiving and will continue to receive the attention of His Majesty's Government. Hon. Members have already quoted some of the more dramatic and more pathetic passages in the Report, passages which have already appeared in various sections of the Press. A great many hon. Members wish to speak, and, therefore, I would prefer, unlike the mover and seconder of this Amendment, to ask the House to concentrate attention for a few minutes on the remedies for the situation which has been revealed by the Curtis Committee. I am sure that all of us, in the House and in the country, are indebted to Miss Curtis and her colleagues for the thoroughness with which they have devoted themselves to the problems of these unhappy children, and for the detailed remedies suggested. There are no fewer than 62 recommendations in the Report for improving the present situation. I think it is true to say that, broadly, the situation with which we are confronted exposes two different aspects which call for criticism. First there is the administrative chaos and confusion, in which the whole subject has become involved. Secondly, there is the lack of affection, lack of interest, lack of care and lack of love for these children who are deprived of normal home conditions and normal parents.
Let us take, first, the administrative position as it is today. We find that there are no less than five Government Departments which are, in one form or another, concerned with these various classes of deprived children—the Ministry of Health, the Home Office, the Board of Control, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Pensions. The existing arrangements are summarised in paragraph 98 of the Report, and I do not propose to quote it in detail. I would only say that rarely can administrative measures for dealing with a social problem of this importance have been allowed to become surrounded with so much confusion, so much overlapping and so much mystery and this, as the members of the Committee rightly point out, is one of the fundamental reasons why these deplorable conditions exist. It

would be wrong for us to think that the glaring cases which have been quoted are, in any degree, typical of the whole. To do so would be to forget the devoted work which is done in many parts of the country by people who take a special interest, both as members of local authorities and as officers of local authorities, in looking after deprived children. There are numbers of institutions and schools, as well as homes of foster parents, and places of all kinds where noble work is done in the interest of these young unfortunate children. The Curtis Committee make three general recommendations for ameliorating the present condition. They recommend the appointment in all areas of a children's officer, having equality of status with the other chief officers of local authorities, such as Education Officers, the Medical Officer of Health, the Engineer, and so on. They recommend that local authorities entrusted with this problem should appoint an ad hoccommittee for the express purpose of dealing with deprived children of every class. At the highest level, they recommend that the existing haphazard arrangements should be unified under one central Government Department, although they do not specify which Government Department that should be. That is a matter for legitimate argument and debate, on which I shall address the House in a moment or two.
But, first, I want to say that in my view the most important thing is to implement the recommendation of the Committee for the appointment of a children's officer. When all is said and done, what all the children lack, whether they are destitute or illegitimate, or whether they are in an approved school, is a home. That is the respect in which they differ from all normal children, who have the affection of their parents and a home of their own. In remembering the dreadful conditions of some of these institutions, we must, to retain a sense of perspective, also remember the dreadful conditions of some of the homes in which normal children live. The Committee emphasise that this problem of finding the best substitute for a home for all these children will best be resolved if a responsible, adequately paid, children's officer is appointed by every local authority charged with the administration of this problem. It is to be hoped that the children's officer, in most cases, would be a woman. She would be the person


responsible, with her subordinate staff, for ensuring that all these children have the best substitute for a normal home. I would hope that as many children as possible can be adopted and, that, failing that, as many as possible could be boarded out among foster parents. As regards adoption, I understand that the number of would-be adopters of children already exceeds the number of children waiting to be adopted. Therefore, the solution of that problem ought to be relatively easy. Failing adoption, failing boarding out, I would hope that the tendency would be—

Mr. Nicholson: I hope the hon. Member will not give the impression that adoption arrangements are by any means satisfactory. That part of the Committee's Report relating to adoption was not very good reading, and I hope he will point that out.

Mr. Fletcher: I do not want to be diverted from my main theme, although I agree with the hon. Member that the general law of adoption is capable of a great deal of improvement. The method by which children at present can be adopted is far from satisfactory. The law requires considerable overhaul, but the principle of adoption is one which commends itself because, by that means, you ensure, in the best possible way, the best substitute for a normal home. I hope the procedure for adoption will be simplified and the practice encouraged. After boarding out, I would argue that the children should be put into cottage homes. I do not mean the so-called cottage homes where, frequently, they accommodate 30 or 40 children, with a house mother or father, but homes which can accommodate eight or 10 children, or perhaps 15 at the most, so that they can have the same kind of conditions as a normal family. Whereas, under conditions of that kind, the children can have a degree of individual care and attention and something like a home, similar home conditions are lacking where they are grouped in bodies of 30 or 40.
The next question is whether there should be an ad hoccommittee of every local authority. I regard it as essential that the function of looking after and home-finding for these children should be the concern and responsibility of a definite number of people in any local

authority. It may be arguable as to whether there should be an ad hoccommittee, or that, as at present, the committee dealing with this work should be a sub-committee of the education committee. I think that one may possibly have to leave a measure of flexibility in this arrangement to the local authorities. I think that rigidity is a bad thing both for children, the local author-ties, and generally. Therefore, I should prefer flexibility in this arrangement to rigidity. Other considerations apart, I feel that an ad hoccommittee would ensure a definite number of people charged with this specific function, devoting their time to it and not functioning merely as members of a subcommittee with multifarious other duties pertaining to an overworked central committee.
Whether central responsibility for this work should be entrusted to the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education or to the Home Office, all are agreed that a unified system is essential. I think that the House will agree, for a variety of reasons, that the Ministry of Health is ruled out, and that the real choice is between the Home Office and the Ministry of Education. The determination of that question may be of considerable importance. No one is disputing the work done by the children's department of the Home Office. But a great many of the evils which are reported by this committee must be the result of failure of the Home Office inspectorate, and I think that the House should remember, in particular, if my information is correct, that of the total number of approved schools in this country more are conducted by voluntary organisations and inspected by the Home Office than are in the hands of the local education committees; and, in this context, I would like to quote, with approval, a paragraph which appeared in "The Times" recently with regard to these voluntary societies. "The Times," in a leading article, said:
If local authorities are to be required to employ children's officers, it would seem reasonable to insist that all the voluntary societies should also employ officers of similar competence and humanity, and the Report's recommendations for the tighter regulation and inspection of voluntary organisations by a central department do not appear adequate.
It is sometimes said that the Home Office should be in charge of this central


administrative task because in the eyes of the public, the Home Office embodies and represents the home. It is said that the mere use of the word "home" suggests that the Home Office has something to do with the homes of the people. I mention that because, ridiculous as it is, this is one of the reasons sometimes put forward for leaving these children in the care of the Home Office. Another reason put forward is that the Home Office is largely concerned with depriving citizens of their liberty and in looking after those who had been so deprived, and it is a good thing, so it is said, and in the interests of the Home Office to let them have some humane work to do. We are not in this matter concerned with the welfare of Government Departments, but with the welfare of children. What matters is which Government Department is most likely to be able, and is most likely to be thought of by the public as being able, really to overhaul this dreadfully chaotic machinery that exists at the moment, breathing new life into it, inspiring it with new ideas, and giving it a new directon. I feel with considerable conviction that the Ministry of Education is the right Department, because in the minds of a great many people it represents the Department which par excellenceis concerned with humane activities. There need be no conflict between a branch of the Ministry of Education responsible for looking after these children and the Ministry of Education in its other activities. There is no reason why this humane work should not be done by the Ministry of Education.

Mr. Scollan: Why not appoint a children's Minister?

Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend suggests the setting up of a Ministry of Children. That is a novel suggestion—no doubt, a very good suggestion—which my hon. Friend will no doubt be able to elaborate. For my part I urge the Government, in dealing with the administrative problem, to regard as the sole consideration the question of what will be best in the interests of the children concerned and be most likely to satisfy the public whose conscience has been so thoroughly aroused. I feel that this result will best be achieved if the Ministry of Education is entrusted with these central functions for providing for the care as well as the education of deprived children.

8.37 p.m.

Mr. Keeling: My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. G. Nicholson) mentioned a Motion which appeared on the Order Paper of the House about two years ago, and which led to, although it was not the sole cause of, the appointment of the Curtis Committee. The Members who put their names to that Motion were very much influenced by correspondence which appeared in "The Times" and which attracted great attention. I would like to congratulate both "The Times" and Lady Allen of Hurtwood, who set the ball rolling in "The Times," on the success which attended their efforts. May I add that when the Committee was appointed, I criticised the appointment of Miss Curtis as Chairman because of her association with another inquiry, but I should like to say now that, in my opinion, no Committee could have conducted its inquiries more carefully and more exhaustively, and I think that for that very excellent report we must give a great share of the credit to Miss Curtis.
If the House will allow me, I would like to give a personal experience which focused my attention on this matter, and which underlines, I think, a great deal of what has been said this evening. At the outbreak of the war, I happened to be in the country house of a friend, who gave evidence before the Curtis Committee, in which were at that moment arriving 20 children between the ages of 1½ and 3 who had just been evacuated from an institution belonging to a local authority of high repute. These children were mostly illegitimate. They had been abandoned at birth or shortly after birth. They had never known what home life was; they could not talk, because, presumably, nobody had ever had time to talk to them; they were either silent or they screamed; they were anti-social and entirely helpless; and seeing them, one felt that in abolishing the baby farm of 100 years ago, with all its evils, we had set up another system, the institution, which with all its merits, with all its efficiency in providing for bodily needs, lacked something.
These children that I saw were for the first time entering an ordinary house of an ordinary family. When I saw them again four months later the change was really astounding. They themselves had begun to realise that they were not only receiving


food and clothes but also affection, and in their turn they began to give love and trust. The restless, unsatisfied look on their faces disappeared. Their intelligence and character developed rapidly. The security of an established home had given them confidence? What was the reason for the change? The essential fact was that they were now receiving individual attention, human love and sympathy. In this new home there was one person whom they could trust and on whom they could always depend, who acted as a mother to them. I agree with the hon. Member for Farnham in all that he said about that.
I want to make it clear that I am not making an attack on institutions as a whole. As the Curtis Committee states, there are many voluntary homes and many homes belonging to local authorities which are quite excellent, with good staff, good premises and good committees looking after them. I have seen a number like that. I had a personal experience of the efficiency of a local authority on one aspect of the matter. Some years ago my wife and I had to go abroad for two months and we left our small boy of four in a Norland Home in London. When we came back we took him to a new house which we had in the country. About a week later, an inspector of the local county council arrived at our house, having travelled 30 miles by car, and asked, "Where is the child that was removed from the Norland Home a week ago?" Fortunately we were able to produce him.
A great many of these institutions, however, of both sorts, are efficient without being human. It is very difficult for large institutions to be human. I would ask hon. Members to say, if their children became orphans, and there was no possibility of adoption by trusted relatives, which they would prefer—boarding out with foster parents or an institution? I believe that most members will agree with the Curtis Committee that boarding out is to be preferred to an institution, though it is only second best to adoption. Of course, we must admit that some institutions are necessary, but the acid test must be the extent to which that institution can provide a substitute for home life, the small natural society in which a child can develop. The best institution in the world

cannot provide an entirely adequate substitute. I read that one head of an admirable institution said:
It is a very bad home that is not better than this.
The Curtis Committee themselves referred to
the extreme seriousness of taking away a child even from an indifferent home.
It is perfectly clear that in order to promote adoption, to develop, improve and control the foster-parent system, and to improve the institutions which exist, a great deal of legislation will be necessary. As has already been said, the Committee recommend a strong central organisation and a new ad hocchildren's committee under every local authority. I was very disappointed that the Curtis Committee did not express any opinion as to which central Whitehall Department should be in supreme charge, but reading between the lines, and after talking to some of the members of that Committee, I have no doubt at all that the view of a large majority of the Curtis Committee is that the central Department should be the Home Office. Whether I am right or wrong about their view, it is certainly my own view. The hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) expressed a strong opinion in favour of the Ministry of Education. I want to give one or two reasons why I disagree with him. First, I suggest that the Curtis Committee have, after all, studied this matter more than any hon. Member of this House could possibly have studied it. That is, perhaps, not an entirely convincing reason in itself, but my second reason—

Mr. Dumpleton: The hon. Gentleman will, of course, realise that some of us have been struggling with this problem for years.

Mr. Keeling: I do not dispute that for a moment, but I doubt whether any hon. Member has studied the matter as the Curtis Committee have.

Mr. E. Fletcher: The hon. Gentleman will not overlook the fact that two hon. Members of this House served on the Curtis Committee.

Mr. Keeling: I wonder whether both the hon. Members who were on the Curtis Committee have come down, or will come down, in favour of the Ministry of Education? We shall see. My second reason


is the fact that a children's branch exists at the Home Office with a great deal of experience, even though its record is not entirely blameless. My third reason is that, unlike the Ministry of Education, the Home Office has no bias for the institution as against the home. I suggest that the Ministry of Education must be prejudiced to some extent in favour of the institution.

Mrs. Leah Manning: Why?

Mr. Keeling: Because it exists for institutions and, secondly, because it has very little, if any, knowledge of the home. I do not want to spend any more time on that but wish finally to support very strongly the demand for legislation in this matter this Session. The hon. Member for East Islington said to at we ought to be satisfied with the assurance of the Government that this matter was receiving and would receive attention. I am not satisfied with that assurance. I think that this matter is extremely urgent and I hope that the Lord Privy Seal will announce that legislation will be undertaken during this Session. If he does not announce it, I hope that party discipline will not be so strong as to prevail over the keen sympathy which I am sure hon. Members opposite have for this Amendment. I am quite sure that the country desires and expects that legislation will be undertaken on the lines of the Curtis Report without delay.

8.49 p.m.

Mrs. Nichol: As one of the two Parliamentary Members of the Curtis Committee I, naturally, share the disappointment expressed by the mover and seconder of this Amendment that no mention of immediate legislation has been made in the Gracious Speech, but as I am a Government supporter I understand the difficulties and am a good deal more tolerant of them than hon. Members opposite can be expected to be. At the same time, the gravity of the subject demands the earliest possible legislative action, and I sincerely hope that the Government will as soon as it is practicable introduce legislation which will make the recommendations of the Committee operative. In the meantime I should like to press for a tightening by administrative Order of the control of the various Ministries concerned in child care, by more frequent inspections, and in

other ways, pending legislation. Until such time as legislation can be passed, there should thus be no recurrence of cases like the O'Neill case, which was largely responsible for bringing into being the Curtis Committee.
The trouble we found, putting it very bluntly, was that there are too many responsible authorities. At the same time, paradoxical as it may sound, in some cases there were not enough authorities. At this point I should like to remove some of the bad impressions which might have been created by the publication of the more sensational parts of the Curtis Report. Hon. Members have made references to them in their speeches today. As a member of the Committee, I think it is only fair to state that there is a good deal of kind, patient and intelligent work being done in institutions, foster homes and voluntary homes, and wherever children are cared for otherwise than by their parents. I can speak for the Curtis Committee in saying that we are extremely grateful for that work, but there are very many black spots, as the evidence reveals. Those black spots would be terrible in any age, but they are particularly revolting in an age which calls itself enlightened.
There is only time in a short speech to deal with a few of the main ideas in the Report. It is possible that there may be a bigger Debate on the subject in the near future. I hope there will be, because more ground could be explored on such an occasion. The first element in the life of a deprived child which, from whatever cause, makes the child "deprived," is the lack of a home background, or the nearest approach to it. That is the thing to which we have to set our minds because it is the most important missing link in the child's life. The deprived child is a very defenceless person. It just has not the feeling that there is anyone to care for it. It is the knowledge among the public of that feeling which aroused so much indignation at some of the evidence revealed in the Report. Not only must a home background be provided, but there must be skilled care and sympathy and, if possible, the love which is given to more fortunate children. Thirdly, there is the element of personal protection which should shield all young children. They must be made to feel, what?—needed and safe. That


is the core of the whole thing. They must be given security and stability. That is the normal atmosphere of the normal, natural home.
Faced with these facts during the investigation, members of the Committee directed their main attention to the best method of providing those missing elements, the home, the love, the skill, the care, the safety and the stability. Hon. Members will be very pleased to find in a simple analysis of the recommendations in the Curtis Report an attempt to deal with this difficult problem. It is one which comes back finally to the relationship between individual children and individual adults, and it is obvious that the adults who are to be charged with the responsibilities shall not only be competent and trained but part of a unified system so carefully devised that there is a guarantee that the task which they undertake shall be properly performed. The Committee therefore addressed itself to the main weaknesses in the present system—or lack of system—one, the lack of trained personnel; and, two, the confusion which arises from divided authority.
As in the case of the new Education Act, the difficulty will be to find sufficiently well trained people to implement the recommendations of the Report. The first part of the Committee's work was therefore the interim Report on the training of the adults who will deal with this problem. That Report has been in the hands of hon. Members for very nearly 12 months, and I am very sorry to say that little has so far been done towards making that Report a live thing instead of something in a pigeon-hole. It is a very important Report because it is, so to speak, the basis upon which the further recommendations rest. There will not be very much disagreement in this House on the proposal for appointing well-trained, competent, tactful, sympathetic persons who shall be called children's officers. This children's officer is to be responsible for the welfare of deprived children from the moment they become deprived. This is important, because a child may become deprived at the age of six weeks or a month, and it is from that moment that it needs care and affection and a home and that the work of the children's officer should start.
I now come to the question of authority, that is, the future administration of the scheme. On this there may be differences of opinion. A few differences of opinion have been evidenced tonight. Some will favour one kind of committee, and some another. I have heard hon. Members say that if it came under the Education Committee, it could be another job for the teachers. From conversations I have had with teachers, I should hardly think that anybody would be willing to put one more job upon teachers. When one considers the work that teachers do now other than teaching—dishing out meals, maintaining discipline at mealtimes, distributing boots and school clothing, being officers in junior service units, running orchestras, football matches, school journeys and harvest camps—the average teacher makes Pooh-Bah look like a specialist.

Miss Herbison: Surely the hon. Member is not suggesting that if this came under the Ministry of Education the teachers would have to find the homes and so on? We are quite convinced that that is the correct thing, but we are just as convinced that it should not mean an added job for the teachers, like milk, meals and so on.

Mrs. Nichol: I am only saying that more than one hon. Member has suggested to me that if this work came under the Ministry of Education, it might involve another job for the teachers. I am not suggesting that hon. Members who wish to act under the Ministry of Education think that; I am only suggesting that there are hon. Members who think that it may be another job for the teachers. One thing which frightens me about putting it under an already very hardworked Ministry which covers a great deal of the life of the child, is that it might conceivably be given to an official or to a sub-committee, or it might be shelved in some way and not get the attention it deserves.
It is obvious that we are all agreed in this House that the thing which is missing is the home. The home background is the kernel of the whole problem, and it is the home which has to be provided. I submit to hon. Members on both sides of the House that the deprived child will get education, it will get health services, it will get out-of-school activities, it will get all that we provide now in a school in the way of meals, clothing and everything. It will get its outings,


pocket money, and so on. The only thing it will not get, unless we specially provide it, is the home, and that is what is most lacking.
I feel there will be a great deal of discussion about the various Ministries, but whichever Ministry it goes under, it is not something for which I am prepared to die in the last ditch or go on the barricades. All I ask is that whichever Department it is, there shall be a special children's branch to do this specialist work, considered as something special and apart, just as the home of a child in a natural home is something special and apart. Your child and my child has its home and its school and its activities and all the other things, but its home is something special, and it is that home for which it cares passionately. The provision of a home background should be specially undertaken by a children's branch of whichever Ministry undertakes it.
Then I would press for ad hoccommittees, which can be composed of elected people who have had experience in education or health matters, with other people coopted who are specially sympathetic or, again who have had special experience. The children's officer should be responsible to this ad hoccommittee and, between them, they should take full responsibility for the welfare of the children in that way from any age. I do not want to go into any more details but I want to emphasise that this human piece of work should be the care of one special branch of a Ministry, and that the children's officer—

Mr. Keeling: Would the hon. Member not tell us, after sitting on the Curtis Committee and hearing all the evidence, which Ministry she prefers?

Mrs. Nichol: I could give only a personal opinion. We were scrupulously careful not to discuss on the Committee which Ministry we favoured, because some may think one, some another, is best, and we felt it should be settled at a higher level, that the Government would have to decide it administratively, and that it was not strictly within our terms of reference. We thought we had a job to do of a specially circumscribed nature and that, whichever Ministry undertook it, was the one which the Government would decide upon. I do not in the least mind giving my own personal opinion as long

as it is understood that it was not a Committee decision. I feel that it should come under the Home Office, but not because of the rather nonsensical remark made by some hon. Members tonight about the word "home." I want to remind hon. Members that there is a side to the Home Office of which very few people know. It is their connection with children at all stages of their life which people outside do not fully understand, or appreciate. I feel that there is not a specialist bias either way. The other things can be provided by the appropriate Ministries—Health and Education—but this matter of a home, and a home background, and the welfare immediately surrounding the home, is something separate and apart. The administration is there, the machinery is there, and a good deal of work is already done by that Department. I think it could be most appropriately done by the Home Office, but, as I say, I shall not be sick with disappointment if it is decided otherwise, so long as provision is made for the work we especially wish to see undertaken, and on which we pin our hopes, this great work of creating home conditions. If that is done competently and well by any other Ministry, and if they specialise in it, I shall feel satisfied.
I think there is general agreement on all sides of the House that a Measure to deal with this question is very much overdue and that the problem is crying out for remedy. We shall look forward to the time when we can have—we hope it will be in the immediate future—legislation which will make it impossible for little children to suffer, as many of them are suffering. Hon. Members on all sides of the House will agree that the recommendations contained in the Report, if fully implemented, will go a long way to seeing that the children who are now deprived children, shall have an opportunity of growing up into strong, healthy, happy men and women, and useful citizens.

9.9 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: I appreciate that a large number of hon. Members on the other side of the House have had very long experience in this field, and I, therefore, shall make my remarks as short as possible. In order to put the question into perspective, I would say that this is not a new problem. Some 50 years ago, at Toynbee Hall, Dame Henrietta


Barnett and her friends made a report on this very subject. I would like to quote from what they said. It was written in the "Life of Canon Barnett" by his wife:
This Committee condemned root and branch the system of bringing up large numbers of children in group cottage homes. They described them as artificial villages in which children can never be absorbed into the full life of the community. Yet today"—
as the Report says—
43 per cent. of the children in local authority homes
and an indefinite number (which the Report noticeably avoids computing) are in grouped cottage homes. Indeed the Curtis Report visualises the continuation of this method. That is their third preference. So much for 50 years' advance. The final, the most damning indictment, is on another page of the Report:
The National Union of Teachers expressed the view in evidence that not more than 4 per- cent. of all children in a particular school could safely be home children without being in a group marked off from their fellows.
What a condemnation. I think that is the final condemnation of this method of dealing with children. May I assume that the House has read the Report? May I do them that courtesy, and not go over any of the points which are so well established in this remarkable Report? If I do not pay tribute, it is only because it would be repeating what others have said. I have said that this problem is not new. Miss Rendel, the head of the Caldecott Community, wrote a pamphlet a few years ago called "The Insecure Child," which I thought so important that it led me to make a half-hour speech, largely out of Order, on these very children, during the Education Act Debate in 1944, trying somehow to introduce them into the Education Act. You, Mr. Speaker, or your predecessor allowed me to go on for half an hour and then stopped me. Lady Allen of Hurtwood published a pamphlet called "Whose children?" which very largely focussed the attention of the nation on these children. The O'Neill case and Marlsford Lodge simply brought the matter to a head.
The junior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Wilson Harris), who raised this question, said we wanted action. He said the children are in our hands—but

they are not. There are children under the Catholic Welfare Council, under the National Children's Homes and Orphanage, there are children in the Foundling Hospital, and a host of other homes, who are not in our hands. They have no legal guardians, and will not, under the Curtis Report, have legal guardians. Therefore, though it is our responsibility, in a broad sense, now that the Report is before us, we have to go a long way before we can produce a specific remedy. I want to ask the Lord Privy Seal whether the Government have chosen the key points. I think they could do so. I am not quite sure whether the right hon. Gentleman is ready to answer that tonight. I am not so keen about dividing upon this Amendment tonight. This is a much older question than some hon. Members seem to realise. I would much sooner have the right thing done a little later than have hasty legislative action now. Administration is of course another matter.
Some hon. Members have said that there is a children's branch at the Home Office, and a very constructive body it is. There is also a children's branch in the Ministry of Education. I want to mention it in passing, because they have had quite a lot to do with children. This Report, with its admirable priority of recommendations, and its faithful picture of dull, grey, unimaginative treatment, is excellent. My criticism is fundamental. It is that the Committee has shied at applying the full recommendations to the voluntary homes. As the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Godfrey Nicholson) urged in his moving speech, as did other Members, adoption; but that means changing the laws of adoption fundamentally, and is far and away the best thing. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Carmichael) has had years of experience in Glasgow. He knows that children are boarded today all over Scotland, and have been for years, with admirable care. The real truth emerging from this Report is that we do not want institutions at all, voluntary or statutory. That is our target.

Dr. Morgan: The hon. Member is advocating the abolition of institutions. What is to be done with the ineducable child?

Mr. Lindsay: A host of things could be done. All local authority children are, under this Report, to be under legal pro-


tection, but children in the voluntary homes are not. The central point suggested in this organisation by Miss Curtis and her Committee arises from their recognition of the vital need for children having the protection of an individual officer called the children's officer, who is to be concerned with their personal interests, and not only with inspecting homes. Protection is to be allowed to children under the local authority but denied to children under the voluntary homes. There is to be no legal guardian for children under the voluntary homes. Indeed, the danger of isolating the children in the voluntary homes is intensified by another recommendation that the heads of the home shall become a legal guardian of the children. This is not progress: this is going backwards.
My contention is that the local authority should become the legal guardian of all children deprived of a normal home life and that the voluntary societies should become the agency for their care. The Curtis Report says that the children's officer is rightly regarded as the pivot of the organisation, and yet this pivotal person, on whom so much store is set, is denied to over 50 per cent. of the children. Why is such tenderness shown for the interests of the voluntary homes? I maintain that the interests of the children should come first. They want justice not charity. I think the Curtis Report rightly puts adoption first and boarding out second, as the best way of caring for these children. The voluntary homes are free to refuse both adoption and boarding out. In other words, we may go on for another 50 years with grouped cottage homes within these voluntary societies. Take, for example, what is called the "Big Six", which together cares for 35,000 children. Only 4,000 are boarded out and 1,000 are adopted. The remaining 30,000 children are condemned to residential homes, in spite of the recommendations of this Report. It seems that is a vital flaw. I hope that point can be answered by the right hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether he agrees with this interpretation but I hope the Government can make up their own mind in their own way based on the experience which I know the Lord Privy Seal personally has had during the many years in which he has been interested in this subject.
I agree with the main recommendations of the Report and I wish them to be

applied to all children without tear or favour. I want to see the minimum of segregation and the maximum of children being brought into the main stream with normal children. Who, after all, are the children in our ordinary schools, and who are these children in the Home Office schools? They are not delinquents, believe me. Ask Mr. Duncan at the Larkhills School at Winchester. He will say that these are not abnormal children at all. I say that 50 per cent, of the children in the Home Office schools are not seriously delinquent, they are bored largely due to being 60 and 70 in a class. I go further and say that 10 per cent. of the children under the normal education system deserve special educational treatment. Why not bring these children together? Do hon. Members really think that by setting up a new department called "The Department of Finding a Home" that is going to make a vast deal of difference to the home life of these children? I do not want to press tonight purely administrative questions. I have a conception of the Ministry of Education which is slightly different. I am glad to see the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education is present I am sure she will agree that what she would like to see is a Ministry of Education dealing with something more than the minds of the children. I also see present my hon. Friend the Member for South Tottenham (Mr. Messer), who has such a profound knowledge of handicapped children. I wonder, when he is free to speak, as chairman of that Committee, where he would like to place the responsibility. I am sure he would like to feel that these children are brought into the stream under normal education.

Mr. Messer: That, very definitely, is my view. These are children, not cases.

Mr. Lindsay: Reference has been made to children's officers, and what I am concerned with is that these persons—and they are very badly needed—shall be under the local authority the legal guardians of all children. There are many other questions in the Report, questions of standards and training which the hon. Lady the Member for North Bradford (Mrs. Nichol) has mentioned. As she said, why have 12 months gone by with no courses set up, except in two voluntary societies, for training people?


I should like to see that integrated with the main work of the Minister of Education. I ask the Lord Privy Seal tonight to tell us that the Government will realise the acuteness of this problem, which is a reproach to all of us, and that they will bring into the main educational stream these children who are so little different from the normal children of the country.

9.21 p.m.

Mr. Corlett: In the brief time allowed me I must say that I agree entirely with the remarks of the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay), and I hope the Government will consider these recommendations very carefully indeed before they decide which of them they are going to implement. I agree wholeheartedly with many of the recommendations of the Curtis Report, but I must confess that I read with surprise and dismay their administrative recommendations, and I cannot help feeling that they made the same fatal mistake that has been responsible for the wasteful and overlapping functions which they so rightly and so severely condemn. These wasteful, overlapping functions are there because, in every case, we have considered the handicap of the child first and the child second, and I believe that to be completely fatal.
I believe that the Curtis Committee has made exactly the same mistake. I believe that they might have rendered a much greater service to the deprived child if they had considered the child first and the handicap second, and I can only believe that they made that mistake because of that really remarkable statement on page 145 of their Report where they state that an education committee is concerned with the educational development of the mind. That is a most amazing statement. It could be argued that it is precisely for the reason that education committees are concerned with the development of the mind that deprived children should be their responsibility. We all know that their responsibilities are now very much greater indeed than the development of the mind. We have only to go into an education committee office, and I have been going into them for 30 years, to see the remarkable development in the way of medical services, meals services, juvenile employment, youth services, remand

homes, approved schools and the care of children and so on under the 1933 Act. We know, of course, that under the 1944 Act, under the special regulations, it is their bounden statutory duty to look after these handicapped children.
The amazing thing about this Report seems to me to be that the Curtis Committee is quite prepared to say that it is the responsibility of the local education authority to look after all normal children, except deprived children. They seem to us to say that it is the duty of the local education authorities to look after all subnormal children, that it is the duty of local education authorities to provide day and residential accommodation for every type of child — normal, subnormal, physically handicapped and mentally handicapped, and the child suffering from multiple defects, which is the. worst case of all. These are the responsibility of local education authorities, but they must not, according to the Curtis Report, deal with the deprived children, who come into every one of these categories. I cannot understand why the Committee have made these recommendations, particularly when they emphasise that the one thing they want to avoid is isolation and segregation. That is the one thing which they say they want to avoid, yet that is the one thing which, by their own recommendations, they will inflict upon these children. I know that some of my friends in the educational world thought that the Curtis Committee were prejudiced, but I think that, if we read page 145 very carefully, we may find the reason in the very same sentence at the end, where they say very clearly that the education committee, dealing with constantly increasing duties, may fail to recognise the importance of home-finding, and in consequence may tend to treat it as a side issue and to deal with it through office staff.
That, I suggest, is what is in their minds, and I assume that they must have some evidence for such a view. If they have, then it ought to be produced. I cannot believe that it is possible for them to find any widespread evidence of a substantial nature. Such evidence as they do find is to be expected in the conditions of the last six or seven years. What did they expect to find during that period? What did they expect to find from some education authorities who have been far from progressive, and many of whom, fortunately, ceased to exist after the last two


municipal elections? Many of them were not prepared to carry out this service, and were quite prepared to find anybody on the staff without the necessary qualifications to do the job. They were prepared to avoid the expense and put off the evil day when these things had to be done. As I have said, some such authorities have gone. But now these are duties and not powers for education authorities. If there are reactionary authorities, they will soon be brought to heel, because the Ministry can proceed against them and compel them to do these things or, if they will not do them, can do them for them.
I agree with the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities that these children must be part of an integrated service. They must come under the normal agency that deals with all children, and they must not be segregated. If we segregate them—and I speak with a considerable knowledge of juvenile court work and of the administrative machine—then we are going to deprive these deprived children of their only salvation.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. R. A. Butler: The Gracious Speech had a very metallic ring, and many human subjects were omitted from it. We on this side of the House wish to support the initiative that has been taken tonight in urging the Government to state their intentions on the subject of a most human document, and one in which we are all interested. There is, in fact, no reference to the Curtis Report in the Gracious Speech and this, taken together with other significant omissions, such as the promised law in regard to the revision of the Poor Law and the revision of the Criminal Justice Act—to take only two examples—seems to indicate that the Government are not specialising in the human matters which interest us all, and which are of vital consideration in the present condition of the country.
I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman who replies whether the Government can give an assurance that, despite the omission from the Gracious Speech of all reference to this particular matter, they will be ready to legislate on some of the matters laid down, which can be read and summarised in the Appendix of the Curtis Report. Altogether, there are 65 recommendations. I put it to the Government, and to the right hon. Gentleman in par-

ticular, that it is of no use telling us that the whole of this matter can be dealt with by administration alone. It can be very considerably improve I by administration, but there is no doubt, to take only one example, the question of adoption—and there are many others that I could give if I had the time—that there are many matters upon which legislation is necessary. Therefore, we shall want to know from the right hon. Gentleman whether he proposes to legislate and, on that, we can decide what action we shall take at the end of this Debate.
The right hon. Gentleman realises that there is an incredible lack of clarity and a great amount of confusion in regard to children as a whole. When I had to take part in the Debate on national insurance, I was able to point out that, dating from the time of the Coalition, the different awards made by way of allowances to children in this country have never yet been coordinated, nor has any pressure been brought to bear on the matter. Similarly, one has only to read this Report to realise that deprived children are the responsibility of a variety of Government departments, of a variety of institutions and of a variety of authorities, to such an extent that even a person who relies upon tidiness as an excuse for legislation might regard himself as moved to take action.
Taking the Report as a whole, we certainly consider that its recommendations deserve some attention from the House: Its reference to the isolation and apartness of homes, its reference to the need for the training of staff and personnel, its reference to after-care and to methods, of selection for employment, its reference to boarding out in foster homes, and the particularly human reference, concerning a matter which I used to chase when I was at the Ministry of Education, to which I will refer the House in paragraph 461, in which the Committee strongly deprecates
the system which obtains in one charitable organisation of boarding out the children as infants and bringing them in to an institution at school age or a little older, even though their foster parents are anxious to bring them up in their homes and send them to the local schools and the children themselves are happy and well cared for.
That has always seemed to me to be a singularly inhuman and inefficient method of dealing with a very human problem. There is, then, the old question of voluntary agencies and their supervision,


and the undoubted support, which we welcome, that the Committee gives to the voluntary agencies. But leaving aside all those recommendations which, in view of the time which the Front Bench is so rightly taking in this Debate, I cannot dilate upon, I come to the issues of administration which are so important, and which have been mentioned on both sides of the House.
First of all, I come to the question of the coordination of activity at the centre in Whitehall. How are we to deal with this matter? Some hon. Members have said that they favoured the Ministry of Education being the central Department concerned; other hon. Members have said that they favoured the Home Office; and we have heard from the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) the remarkable revelation that the Curtis Committee themselves favour the Home Office. The simple question I ask is, If they favour the Home Office, why did they not say so in their Report? The fact is that they have not made up their minds, and even so wise a Parliamentarian as my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay) has left this matter to another day. What course, then, am I to adopt? As one whose chief interest has been in the field of education, I am naturally prejudiced to the duties being handed over to the Ministry of Education, but I will say, on this occasion, that I think what matters most at the centre is not an undignified scramble between Ministers or between Government Departments, but a decision to have an efficient children's department somewhere.
For example, if it is to go to the Ministry of Education, it will be vital to transfer to the Ministry of Education those excellent officers and specialists who at present specialise on the matter at the Home Office. Similarly, if it is to go to the Home Office, it will be convenient, if I may use official language, for the House to remember that there are some singularly well gifted experts at the Ministry of Education who should be associated with the new Department. Whatever the decision may be, I trust it will be an efficient central department which can deal with this matter and look after the children from the central point of view. I was very sympathetic towards the hon. Member for York (Mr. Corlett) in putting forward his point of view of

what he regards as education. I have before me the extraordinary language of the Curtis Committee and their evident opinion on education. They say:
The education committee being mainly concerned with education of the mind, and dealing as it does with constantly increasing duties, may fail to recognize. …
Surely, those two statements are mutually destructive. It was, indeed, my intention in the Education Act, helped as I was by the right hon. Gentleman who is now Home Secretary, to enlarge the duties of the education department almost indefinitely, and if it is to be an excuse that education is unable to handle this matter simply because the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education is otherwise attempting to extend its horizon, I regard that paragraph and that argument as not worth the paper they are written on. The hon. Member for York was perfectly right in his summing up of some of the duties of education—for example, instruction and training in schools, county colleges, and institutions, further education, the school health services in schools and county colleges. I think that goes a little further than the somewhat limited definition in the Curtis Report—the school meals service; child guidance clinics; the juvenile employment service; boarding schools for normal children and for children handicapped by physical or mental defect; interest in the approved schools and remand homes; the care and protection of children and young persons; guardianship of infants; the youth service, and so forth. All these are matters which are directed to the care of what is described as education in broad terms. To sum up in a few words, the object of education is to cover the physical, mental, moral and spiritual welfare of all children. Now, it is when I come, in my last few moments, to the periphery or external authority outside the central department, that, I think, the recommendation of the Curtis Committee is definitely wrong. To suggest the appointment of an ad hoccommittee is the last resort of harassed committees, however excellent their reports may be, as I have indicated earlier.

Mr. Dumpleton: The right hon. Gentleman is questioning one of the recommendations. Does he mean that the Amendment to which he is speaking would commit the Government to the recommendations as a whole?

Mr. Butler: No, I do not think so. In any case I am making my own speech. The decision is, I am sure, too simple and tidy. I consider that, having indicated the various duties that fall within the purview of education, it would really be tragic if, under any local authority, a new committee were set up which, in fact, segregated and separated the children from the main stream of education and all it means. I have been much impressed by various suggestions which have been made, and I would suggest to the Government that there is really no need to make a great deal of pother about this, whether we call it an ad hoccommittee, or not. I would suggest that what is wanted is a children's committee which promotes the interest of children in the direction we all would like to see. In any case, I should like to see a majority drawn from members of the local education committee, and possibly, it might be, a sub-committee of the education committee. In any case, by means of commonsense and compromise I think we can settle this matter under the local authorities.
I conclude, in my last remarks, about the children's officer. There are two types of public officer under public authorities. The man who spends all his time at the desk, if he is to be any good, must be a first class administrator. Then there is the man or woman who does what is known as the field work—an expression which I always find it difficult to understand. But because the latter is outside the office and looks at people in their own homes and understands what is going on, I do not believe that one and the same person can do both jobs. The Committee's Report tends to simplify this matter also. If we are to have a secretary to the committee, which would be a sub-committee of the education committee, or the education committee itself, then I think we want that secretary to be of the first type. At the same time, we want visitors outside who can do the field work and keep in touch with the children in their homes. To sum up, I think that, in arriving at the final decisions, simplicity or tidiness will not be easy to arrive at, but if we take the best of the undoubted traditions behind the Ministry of Education, the Home Office and the Ministry of Health then, I think, we shall be able to reach some solution of the matter. The important thing of all is that the right

hon. Gentleman should tell us the Government intend to take action, and not sit back and let this thing stew.

9.40 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Arthur Greenwood): We have had a Debate which has not been unfruitful or uninteresting. It has not been charged with dynamite, as earlier discussions on the Address have been, but it has dealt with a very human problem, and the Government are indebted to those hon. Members, who have spoken with such obvious sincerity, and many of them with very considerable knowledge, on what is not a new problem, as my hon. Friend has reminded us, but a very old problem. My first words should be words of thanks to the Curtis Committee, to the Chairman and members of that Committee for that Report. It is perfectly true that there have been earlier inquiries, like the Barnet inquiry and others, but this Report is a comprehensive document covering a very wide field, and has shown great human sympathy in its conclusions. In it is exhibited a good deal of wisdom and a grasp of the great fact—I do not want tonight to deal with details—that a child is something more than a little creature you have to feed and clothe and put shoes on. The Report is a great human contribution to a very vexed and neglected problem.
Had this Committee been appointed shall we say 30 years ago, there might have been considerable advantage in it, but in the last 30 years things have marched. Children are being taken better care of, children are being better fed, children's health is being looked after better than it was 30 years ago, and in the case of those so called delinquent children, the neglected and derelict children, we have in 30 years travelled along a road which has lead us to considerable success. It is true that success is not complete; all that new, creative work, let us remember, came to a stop in 1939. We have not yet measured the social losses we sustained in seven years of world war. There is a good deal to be done now in trying to catch up the unfortunate marking time, in the development of these agencies which was imposed upon us when the war broke out. It is true, however, as hon. Members have pointed out, that we are dealing now, in this field, with a patchwork of services. It is "a thing of shreds and patches,"


partly public agencies and partly voluntary agencies, covering a wide field, and I think it is perfectly clear that something has to be done about it.
There are difficulties about speedy and effective action in building up the personnel needed to make an effective service dealing with children. It is not going to be very easy. You cannot train people, in next to no time, to become not merely foster parents, but something far more than that; you cannot train them out of hand, you cannot just give them a month's course. You have to choose them first, and they have to be people who believe in doing this kind of work, who feel that it is a vocation. You do not find such people round every street corner. It is a problem we shall do our best to meet as time goes on.
It is suggested—it is more than suggested; it is a threat—that a terrible thing is going to happen unless a definite commitment is made about legislation being introduced next week, if not earlier. I am not going to give any commitment of that kind. I think the House will agree with me that to ask a Government, when it has a report presented to it less than a month before the King's Speech is introduced, suddenly to open up a whole series of lengthy discussions—and ex-Cabinet Ministers know that King's Speeches are not made overnight, or at least are not so made by a wise Government like this—is asking something which is really impossible. Reference has been made in the Debate to the undoubted fact that the problem now before the House is, to many people, a new problem. But what about the children chimney-sweeps a century and a half ago? What about the child labour in my own part of the country, the North of England—the child slaves, if ever there were child slaves, and their grandchildren, who bear the marks of that slavery today—half grown, not as tall and as vigorous as they should be? For generations the children in the factories were stunted and starved. Not many people cared about it, and it was a long time before anyone took any real interest in it. It took over half a century before a great humanitarian, Lord Shaftesbury —[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I always pay credit where it is due. I am not assessing any political values in saying that a great humanitarian drew attention to this

problem of the factory children. Three generations of factory children had then been slave-bound to the mills and the factories of Yorkshire and Lancashire.
I remember the Royal Commission on the Poor Law, which was appointed in the earlier years of this century, and which reported about 1909. I had been campaigning for some years, at great physical risks I may say, in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in Lancashire against the half-time system, about which a lot of hon. Members seem to have forgotten. That Royal Commission reported, I say, about 1909. Twenty years elapsed—and let me here pay credit to a Conservative Government, because I am in a generous mood tonight—after this most urgent evil had been condemned both by the Majority and by the Minority Reports, notwithstanding its urgency and gravity, before legislation was produced. That made a beginning of the breaking up of the evil system. I happened, as Minister of Health in 1929, to watch the changeover from the boards of guardians to the public assistance committees, and I remember what growing pains we suffered in those days. I remember how my predecessor had almost to displace some boards of guardians and put in commissioners. It was a very awkward time. That process is still continuing, and more might have been done but for the war.
We are now left with the hard core of the problem of the almost forgotten children. It is a problem not easy of solution. I am encouraged by the demand for speed on the part of Members opposite. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Leeds (Mi. Peake) said last Friday, I think it was, that he was surprised that there was no promise of legislation on this matter this Session. I ask the House, in all seriousness, to remember that any Government must think ahead about its legislation for a coming Session. This Report was published on 16th October, and the new Session began on 12th November. We were aware of the problem. In fact, I have been aware of it longer than many people who have been talking in the Debate tonight. The child problem is not a new one with me. [Laughter.]I do not see the point of Members' levity. Was it not right that we should wait before coming to any conclusions of our own on the recommendations of the Curtis Com-


mittee which, I think, on the whole worked swiftly? It would have been much better for us if we had had the Report three or six months earlier but, in the nature of the situation, that was impossible. If Members want to challenge us on the fact that within less than a month after receiving the Report we did not make up our minds to introduce legislation this Session, then I am prepared to accept the challenge. I think such a challenge is unreasonable.
But that does not mean that nothing is being done. I have here a copy of a circular which is going out during the next few days, from the three Departments primarily concerned, to all local authorities affected by this problem. It urges action, and points out ways in which things can be done. All possible administrative action is being, and will be, taken. Further, it is open to Members on any side of the House to put down Questions to ask Ministers whether they are carrying out their responsibility or not, and we shall not shirk that issue. There are big problems that can, perhaps, be handled without legislation. A good deal has been said tonight about whether one Department might be charged with this problem. I do not think the Curtis Committee is to be blamed for not having come to a conclusion, because, after all, the members of that Committee were not asked to come to a conclusion about that matter. If the Government, when they have had a little time to think, after the Debate on the Address is over, should come to a conclusion about the unification of central administration, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will put it to the House, and say what the Government think ought to be done about it. Some legislation will be necessary but that legislation, believe me, is not so easy as it appears to many people. There are a considerable number of the 62 recommendations which would require legislation. I think that hon. Members, if they have had much experience of legislation, will agree that such a Measure would not be one of those one-Clause Bills, which so many people love. It will be a complicated Measure. I like one-Clause Bills myself. They are very simple, until you

try to administer them, and then they become more complicated. This would be a very important Measure.
We are in the process now of developing a system of social security. Hon. Members opposite in the last Session were a little concerned about the speed with which we were moving. We have gone a long way, but the problem is not finished. We have still to clean up the poor law system, or what is left of it. The question of children arises in connection with all kinds of bits and pieces left over by the poor law system and associated legislation. This Government will not fail during their term of office, to fulfil the promises which they made before the last General Election. We have done more than we have said we would do.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: What about the friendly societies?

Mr. Greenwood: Eighty Acts of Parliament in one Session is not a mean harvest—nor will this Session be—but we shall, of course, have regard to the very excellent speeches which have been made today. We shall go on with our administrative improvements as far as we can, but I really cannot accept the threat that, if we do not put legislation on the Statute Book this Session, some hon. Members will vote against the Government. Well, if they choose to do so, I shall be very sorry, but I am quite sure that, on reflection, hon. Members will realise that this is a big and complicated issue. The time at our disposal has been very short; all possible administrative action is being taken and what legislation is necessary will be introduced as and when we have the opportunity to do it.

Mr. Wilson Harris: I had hoped to avoid a Division on this question, but in view of the very different view which the right hon. Gentleman takes on the urgency of this matter from that which some of us take, I feel that I must press the Amendment to a Division.

Question put, "That those words be there added."

The House divided: Ayes, 79; Noes, 266.

Division No. 8]
AYES.
[7.20 p.m.


Agnew, Cmdr P. G.
Bracken, Rt. Hon. Brendan
Conant Maj. R. J. E.


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.
Cooper-Key, E. M.


Astor, Hon. M.
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W
Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)


Baldwin, A. E.
Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E


Barlow, Sir J.
Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T
Crowder, Capt. John E


Beechman, N. A.
Bullock, Capt. M.
Cuthbert, W. N.


Bennett, Sir P.
Butler, Rt. Hon R. A. (S'ffr'n W'ld'n)
Darling, Sir W. Y


Birch, Nigel
Carson, E.
Davidson, Viscountess


Bower, N.
Clarke, Col. R S.
Davies, Clement (Montgomery)


Boyd-Carpenter, J A
Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G
De la Bère, R.




Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Kingsmill, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)


Donner, Sqn.-Ldr. P. W
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H
Reid, Rt. Hon J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Drayson, G. B.
Lindsay, M. (Solihull)
Renton, D.


Drewe, C.
Linstead, H. N.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Roberts, Maj P. G. (Ecclesall)


Duthie, W. S.
Low, Brig. A. R. W.
Robinson, Wing-Comdr. Roland


Eccles, D. M.
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Ross, Sir R.


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A


Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Sanderson, Sir F


Foster, J. G (Northwich)
MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.
Scott, Lord W.


Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)
Macdonald, Sir P. (Isle of Wight)
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M
MeKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.


Gage, C.
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Snadden, W. M.


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D.
Maclean, Brig. F. H. R. (Lancaster)
Spearman, A. C. M.


Gates, Maj. E. E.
MacLeod, Capt. J.
Spence, H. R.


George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G. Lloyd (P'ke)
Macmillan, Rt. Hon Harold (Bromley)
Stoddart-Scott. Col. M


George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Macpherson, Maj. N. (Dumfries)
Strauss H G. (English Universities)


Glossop, C. W. H.
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A G
Manningham-Buller, R. E
Taylor, C. S. (Eastbourne)


Granville, E. (Eye)
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Taylor, Vice-Adm E. A (P'dd't'n, S.)


Grimston, R. V.
Marples, A. E.
Teeling, William


Gruffyd, Prof. W. J.
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)


Hare, Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)
Maude, J C.
Thornton-Kemsley, C. N


Harris, H. Wilson
Mellor, Sir J
Thorp, Lt.-Col. R A. F


Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.
Molson, A. H. E.
Touche, G. C.


Head, Brig. A. H.
Morris-Jones, Sir H.
Turton, R. H.


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon Sir C
Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)
Vane, W. M. F


Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Wadsworth, G.


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Neven-Spence, Sir B.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Hogg Hon. Q.
Nicholson, G.
Watt, Sir G. S. Harvie


Hollis, M. C
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P
Webbe, Sir H. (Abbey)


Hope, Lord J
Nutting, Anthony
Wheatley, Colonel M. J.


Howard, Hon. A
O'Neill, Rt. Hon Sir H
White, Sir D. (Fareham)


Hudson, Rt. Hon. R. S. (Southport)
Osborne, C.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O
Willink, Rt. Hon. H U


Hurd, A.
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Winterton, Rt. Hon Earl


Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)
Pocle O. B. S. (Oswestry)
York, C.


Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Price-White, Lt.-Col. D.
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Jarvis, Sir J.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O



Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Cdr. Hon. L. W
Raikes, H. V.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Keeling, E. H.
Ramsay, Maj. S
Mr. Frank Byers and


Kerr, Sir J. Graham
Rayner, Brig. R
Mr. Wilfrid Roberts




NOES


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Burke, W. A.
Dobbie, W.


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)
Dodds, N. N.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Callaghan, James
Donovan, T.


Alpass, J. H.
Carmichael, James
Driberg, T. E. N.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Dumpleton, C. W.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Chamberlain, R. A
Durbin, E. F. M.


Attewell, H. C
Champion, A. J
Dye, S.


Austin, H. L.
Chater, D.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.


Awbery, S. S.
Chetwynd, Capt. G. R
Edelman, M.


Ayles, W. H.
Clitherow, Dr. R
Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B
Cobb, F. A.
Edwards, Rt Hon. Sir C (Bedwellty)


Bacon, Miss A.
Cocks, F. S.
Edwards, John (Blackburn)


Balfour, A.
Coldrick, W.
Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)


Barnes, Rt. Hon A. J.
Collick, P.
Evans, E. (Lowestoft)


Barstow, P. G.
Collindridge F
Evans, John (Ogmore)


Barton, C.
Collins, V. J.
Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)


Battley, J. R
Colman, Miss G. M
Ewart, R.


Bechervaise, A. E.
Comyns Dr. L.
Fairhurst, F.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J
Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.
Farthing, W. J.


Benson, G.
Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N W.)
Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)


Berry, H.
Corlett, Dr. J.
Follick, M.


Bevan, Rt. Hon A (Ebbw Vale)
Cove, W. G.
Forman, J. C.


Bing, G. H. C.
Crawley, A.
Freeman, Peter (Newport)


Binns, J.
Cripps. Rt. Hon. Sir S
Gaitskell, H. T. N.


Blackburn, A. R.
Crossman, R. H. S.
Gallacher, W.


Blenkinsop, A.
Cunningham, P
Gibbins, J


Blyton, W. R.
Daggar, G.
Gilzean, A.


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Daines, P.
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Gooch, E. G.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pl, Exch'ge)
Davies. Ernest (Enfield)
Goodrich, H. E.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Davies, Hadyn (St. Pancras, S. W.)
Gordon-Walker, P. C.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Hey wood)


Brown, George (Belper)
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Grenfell, D. R


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Deer, G.
Grey, C. F.


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Grierson, E.


Buchanan, G.
Delargy, Captain H. J
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)


Burden, T. W
Diamond, J
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)







Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)
Marquand, H. A.
Skinnard, F. W.


Gunter, Capt. R. J.
Marshall, F. (Brightside)
Smith, C. (Colchester)


Guy, W. H.
Martin, J. H.
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)


Haire, Flt.-Lieut. J. (Wycombe)
Mathers, G.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.)


Hale, Leslie
Med and, H. M.
Snow, Capt. J W


Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Solley, L. J


Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
Mitchison, Maj. G. R.
Sorensen, R W


Hannan, W. (Maryhill)
Monslow, W.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F.


Hardy, E. A.
Montague, F.
Southby, Commander Sir A


Harrison, J.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Sparks, J. A.


Hastings, Or. Somerville
Morley, R.
Stamford, W.


Haworth, J.
Morris, Lt.-Col. H. (Sheffield, C.)
Steele, T.


Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)
Stewart, Capt. Michael (Fulham, E.)


Herbison, Miss M.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Strauss, G. R (Lambeth, N.)


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Moyle, A.
Stross, Dr. B.


Hicks, G.
Murray, J. D.
Stubbs, A. E


Hobson, C. R.
Nally, W.
Summersklll, Dr. Edith


Holman, P.
Naylor, T. E.
Symonds, A. L.


Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)
Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Horabin, T. L.
Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


House, G.
Noel-Buxton, Lady.
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Hoy, J
O'Brien, T.
Thomas, John R. (Dover)


Hubbard, T.
Oldfield. W H.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Orbach, M.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Paget, R. T.
Thurtle, E.


Hughes, H. D (Wolverhampton, W.)
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Tiffany, S.


Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)
Palmer, A. M. F
Timmons, J.


Irving, W. J.
Pargiter, G. A.
Titterington, M F.


Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Parker, J.
Tolley, L.


Jay, D. P. T.
Parkin, B T.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G


Jeger, G. (Winchester)
Paton, Mrs. F (Rushcliffe)
Turner-Samuels, M.


Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)
Paton, J. (Norwich)
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Jones, Rt. Hon. A. C. (Shipley)
Pearson, A.
Usborne, Henry


Jones, D. T (Hartlepools)
Peart, Capt. T. F
Vernon, Maj. W. F


Jones, J. H. (Bolton)
Perrins, W
Viant, S. P.


Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Piratin, P.
Walker, G. H.


Keenan, W
Platts-Mills. J. p. F
Wallace, G. D. (Chislchurst)


Kenyon, C.
Poole Major Cecil (Lichfield)
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)




Warbey, W. N


Key, C. W
Porter, E. (Warrington)
Watkins, T E.


King, E. M.
Porter, G (Leeds)
Watson, W. M.


Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E
Pritt, D N.



Kinley, J.
Proctor, W. T
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Kirby, B. V
Pryde, D. J.
Weitzman, D


Kirkwood, D
Pursey, Cmdr. H
Wells, W. T (Walsall)


Lang, G.
Randall, H. E
West, D. G.


Layers, S.
Ranger, J.
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Lee, F. (Hulme)
Rankin, J
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W


Leonard, W.
Rees-Williams, D. R.
Wigg, Col. G. E.


Leslie, J. R.
Reeves, J.
Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B


Levy, B. W.
Reid, T (Swindon)
Wilkes, L.


Lewis, J. (Bolton)
Rhodes, H.
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Lewis, T (Southampton)
Richards, R.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Lindgren, G. S.
Ridealgh, Mrs M.
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Lipson, D. L.
Robens, A.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Upton, Lt.-Col. M
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Williams, Rt. Hon. T (Don Valley)


Logan, D. G.
Rogers, G. H. R
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Longden, F
Sargood, R.
Williamson, T.


Lyne, A. W.
Scollan, T.
Willis, E.


McAdam, W
Scott-Ellict, W
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


McEntee, V. La T
Segal, Dr S.
Wise, Major F. J.


McGhee, H. G.
Shackleton, Wing-Cdr. E. A. A
Wyatt, W.


McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.
Yates, V. F.


Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N.W.)
Shawcross, C N. (Widnes)
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


McLeavy, F.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Zilliacus, K


MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isle)
Shurmer, P.



Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Mainwaring, W. H.
Simmons, C. J
Mr. Joseph Henderson and


Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Skeffington. A M
Mr. Popplewell


Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C

Division No. 9.]
AYES.
[9.59 p.m.


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Hogg, Hon. Q
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Hurd, A.
Raikes, H. V.


Baldwin, A E.
Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'rgh, W.)
Ramsay, Maj. S.


Barlow, Sir J.
Hutchison, Col. J. R. (Glasgow, C.)
Rayner, Brig. R.


Beechman, N. A.
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Cdr. Hon. L. W.
Renton, D.


Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Keeling, E. H.
Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)


Braithwaite, Lt.-Comdr. J. G.
Lennox-Boyd, A. T
Roberts, H. (Handsworth)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Linstead, H. N.
Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Eeclesall)


Bullock, Capt. M.
Lipson, D. L.
Ross, Sir R.


Butler, Rt. Hon. R. A. (S'ffrn W'ld'n)
Low, Brig. A. R. W.
Sanderson, Sir F.


Byers, Frank
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Spence, H. R.


Carson, E.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M


Challen, C.
Mckie, J. H. (Gallsway)
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray)


Clarke, Col. R. S.
Maclay, Hon. J. S.
Teeling, William


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.
Macphsrson, Maj. N. (Dumfries)
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Turton, R. H.


Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U. (Ludlow)
Manningham-Buller, R. E
Wadswortk, G.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Wakefield, Sir W. W.


Cuthbert, W. N.
Marshall, D. (Bodmin)
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Davidson, Viscountess
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Wheatley, Colonel M. J.


Drayson, G. B.
Maude, J. C.
White, Sir D. (Farsham)


Drewe, C.
Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)
York, C.


Duthie, W. S.
Neven-Spence, Sir B.
Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Gage, C.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P



George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Osborne, C.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Harvey, Air-Comdra. A. V.
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Mr. Wilson Harris and


Head, Brig. A. H.
Poole, O. B. S. (Oswestry)
Mr. Godfrey Nicholson


Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.
Price-White, Lt.-Col. D.





NOES.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Crossman, R. H. S.
Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Dagger, G.
Herbison, Miss M.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Hewitson, Capt. M.


Alpass, J. H.
Davies. Harold (Leak)
Hobson, C. R.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Davies, R. J. (Wasthoughton)
Holman, P.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Deer, G.
Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)


Austin, H. L.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
House, G.


Bacon, Miss A.
Delargy, Captain H. J.
Hoy, J.


Balfour, A.
Diamond, J
Hubbard, T.


Barnes, Rt. Hon A. J
Dobbie, W.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)


Barton, C.
Dodds, N. N.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Bechervaise, A. E.
Donovan, T.
Hughes, H. D. (Wolverhampton, W.)


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J
Driberg, T. E. N.
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)


Berry, H.
Dumpleton, C. W.
Irving, W. J.


Bing, G. H. C.
Ourbin, E. F. M.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.


Binns, J.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Jay, D. P T.


Blackburn, A. B
Edelman, M.
Jeger, G. (Winchester)


Blenkinsop, A.
Edwards, John (Blackburn)
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S. E.)


Blyton, W. R.
Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)


Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.
Evans, John (Ogmore)
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Jones, P Asterley (Hitchin)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pt, Exch'ge)
Ewart, R.
Keenan, W.


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Fairhurst, F.
Kenyon, C.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Farthing, W. J.
Key, C. W.


Brooks. T. J. (Rothwell)
Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
King, E. M.


Brown, George (Belper)
Follick, M.
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Forman, J. C.
Kinley, J.


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Gaitskell, H. T. N.
Kirby, B. V.


Buchanan, G.
Ganley, Mrs. C. S
Lang, G.


Burden, T. W.
Gibbins, J.
Lavers, S.


Burke, W. A.
Gilzean, A.
Lee, F. (Hulme)


Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Leonard, W.


Callaghan, James
Gooch, E. G.
Leslie, J. R.


Carmichael, James
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Lever, N. H.


Champion, A. J.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)
Levy, B. W.


Clitherow, Dr. R.
Greenwood, A. W. J. (Haywood)
Lewis, J. (Bolton)


Cluse, W S.
Grenfell, D. R.
Lewis, T. (Southampton)


Cobb, F. A.
Grey, C. F.
Lindgren, G. S.


Cocks, F. S.
Grierson, E.
Lindsay, K. M. (Comb'd Eng. Univ.)


Coldrick, W.
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.


Collick, P.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Logan, D. G.


Collindridge, F.
Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)
Longden, F.


Collins, V. J.
Gunter, Capt. R. J.
Lyne, A. W.


Colman, Miss G. M
Guy, W. H.
McAdam, W.


Comyns, Dr. L.
Hale, Leslie
McAllister, G.


Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
McEntee, V. La T.


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W)
Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R.
McGhee, H. G.


Corbett, Lieut.-Col U. (Ludlow)
Hardy E. A.
McKay, J. (Wallsand)


Corlett, Dr. J.
Harrison, J.
Mackay, R. W. G. (Hall, N.W.)


Corvedale, Viscount
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
McLeavy, F.


Cove, W. G.
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)







Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Pursey, Cmdr. H
Tolley, L.


Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Randall, H. E.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G


Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Ranger, J.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Marshall, F. (Brightside)
Rankin, J.
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Mathers, G.
Rees-Williams, D. R.
Usborne, Henry


Medland, H. M.
Reid, T. (Swindon)
Vernon, Maj. W. F.


Middleton, Mrs. L.
Rhodes, H.
Viant, S. P.


Mitchison, Maj. G. R.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Monslow, W.
Robens, A.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)


Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Warbey, W. N.


Morley, R.
Rogers, G. H. R.
Watkins, T. E.


Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)
Sargood, R.
Watson, W. M.


Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Scollan, T.
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Murray, J. D.
Scott-Elliot, W.
Weitzman, D.


Nally, W.
Segal, Dr. S.
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Shackleton, Wing-Cdr. E. A. A.
West, D. G.


Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)
Wigg, Col. G. E.


Noel-Buxton, Lady.
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)
Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B


Oldfield, W. H.
Simmons, C. J
Wilkinson, Rt. Hon. Ellen


Oliver, G. H.
Skinnard, F. W.
Willey, F. T (Sunderland)


Orbach, M.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke)
Willey, O. G (Cleveland)


Paget, R. T.
Smith, H. N. (Nottingham, S.)
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Palmer, A. M. F.
Snow, Capt. J. W.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Pargiter, G. A.
Solley, L. J.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Parker, J.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F.
Williamson, T.


Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)
Sparks, J. A.
Willis, E.


Paton, J. (Norwich)
Steele, T.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Pearson, A.
Stross, Dr. B.
Wise, Major F. J.


Peart, Capt. T. F.
Stubbs, A. E.
Woods, G. S.


Perrins, W.
Symonds, A. L.
Wyatt, W.


Piratin, P.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
yates, V. F.


Poole Major Cecil (Lichfield)
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
young, Sir R. (Newton)


Popplewell, E.
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)
Zilliacus, K.


Porter, E. (Warrington)
Thomas, John R. (Dover)



Porter, G (Leeds)
Thomas, George (Cardiff)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.


Pritt, D. N.
ThorneyCroft, Harry (Clayton)
Captain Michael Stewart and


Proctor, W. T
Tiffany, S.
Mr. Hannan.


Pryde, D. J.
Timmons, J.

Main Question again proposed.

It being after Ten o' Clock, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.

AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERS' ASSOCIATION

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Niall Macpherson: The matter to which I have to refer tonight has already been raised in the Debate on the Address this afternoon from both sides of the House. It concerns the status of the Aeronautical Engineers' Association in the civil aviation corporations. If I were a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, loyalty would probably compel me to take the same view as has been taken today, but I ask all hon. Members of the House to treat this question tonight as impartially as I have tried to do. I have no special favour for the Aeronautical Engineers' Association, and I certainly have no animosity towards the other unions involved. The affairs of this

union have been brought to my attention by constituents of mine on whose behalf I presented a Petition not long ago.
There has been a good deal of genuine misconception and, I think, a certain amount of misrepresentation, either voluntary or involuntary, both in the House and outside, regarding the origin and activities of this Union. The tremendous expansion of the aviation industry during the war led to the bringing in of a large number of workers who had had no previous experience of aircraft maintenance and had served no ordinary apprenticeship. They were given a course of training by the Government in order to equip them for their duties. By the end of the war many of these men who had been occupied in skilled jobs of maintenance during the war had become skilled men, and large numbers of them had actually qualified for licences. At the time, when this question first arose the A.E.U. were not prepared to receive them within their ranks, although they are now. Therefore, in 1943, a union was formed consisting of these men whom, I say again, the A.E.U. were not prepared to accept. It is, therefore, entirely false to describe this organisation as a breakaway union Can anyone object to its formation? Here


was a new and expanding industry. Would it not have been an economic waste for men who had acquired skill in serving the Air Ministry during the war not to be allowed to put that skill at the service of the civil aviation corporations at the end of the war if the Air Ministry were not themselves prepared to make use of them?
I emphasise again that this cannot be described as a breakaway union, and I would say at this point that of the present total membership of nearly 2,000 in the Aeronautical Engineers' Association only about 300 have ever belonged to another union. Many of these men who were trained in the Air Ministry during the war are now employed in civil aviation. In the British European Airways Corporation the Aeronautical Engineers' Association has so far only about one quarter of the total employees, but in the far greater B.O.A.C. they have a contributory membership of about 1,700 which, in their own grades, is far more members than all the ten unions affiliated to the T.U.C. put together. In the British South American Airways Corporation the Association has over 90 per cent. of the employees engaged on ground maintenance. These figures can be proved and established, but in spite of that the Association is not recognised by the corporations. Let there be no mistake. I am not talking about the total employees in all the unions, but about aircraft maintenance personnel. Perhaps the Minister, in reply, will say to how many those actually amount. An indication is given in a B.O.A.C. advertisement in "Flight" which mentions an aircraft maintenance staff of 4,000 men.
Not until 1943 did the B.O.A.C, which was previously a non-union employer, conclude an agreement with six other trade unions, whose combined membership at that time represented a very small proportion indeed of the total employees. Having started in the maintenance units of the R.A.F., the Aeronautical Engineers' Association grew very rapidly in civil aviation. There were four factors that determined it. In the first place, there was a sense of frustration due to the failure of the A.E.U.—in the opinion of the employees—to look after their interests. They felt that, after all, here was a small industry employing 5,000 or 7,000 employees; why should a vast trade union of 750,000 members bother about such small fry? The result was that a num-

ber of A.E.U. members joined what was already a growing union.
The second point which influenced them was that the majority of employees engaged in aircraft maintenance industries regarded the industry as a new and expanding one, and there was every case, in their view, for control from within the industry itself and not from outside. The third factor which influenced them was the fact that the Aeronautical Engineers' Association offered much better sickness rates. It must be admitted that the reason was that their management expenses were kept relatively low and that the union are not interested, being a non-political union, in collecting fighting funds. The fourth point which influenced them was that the Aeronautical Engineers' Association were able to show solid achievement. They had negotiated with, and had been accepted and recognised by, Skyways. They had negotiated terms with them which were extremely favourable. I believe they are the most favourable terms in civil aviation. The position is, therefore, that while private enterprise recognised the Aeronautical Engineers' Association, the corporations have refused to do so.
Why is that? There can be only one reason, and that is T.U.C. pressure. It is exercised not only upon the corporations, for if it were exercised on the corporations the position would be the same as in similar cases. It is exercised through the Government upon the corporations. All the facts point that way. Clause 19 of the Civil Aviation Bill, as originally introduced, was similar to a Clause in the Coal Mines Bill. It provided, in effect that the corporations would consult with any organisation appearing to represent a considerable body of workers. To guard against the possibility of political pressure, and to ensure that there could be publicity given to any unwarranted refusal to recognise a union, I put down an Amendment suggesting an appeal to the Minister, so that the Minister would be held accountable to this House. The Government later put down an Amendment exempting the corporations from consulting an organisation, even though it thought it appropriate, if the corporation was
satisfied that the existing machinery was adequate.
It is not clear whether that Amendment was the result either of pressure from the


T.U.C. or of fear of pressure. The existing machinery cannot conceivably be considered adequate when the union whose membership is greater than that of all other unions put together in these grades is not consulted at all. What has happened since? My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Glasgow Colonel Hutchison) and I have put down Questions on this matter. On the last occasion I was told by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation that it was a matter in the first instance, for the trades unions concerned, and the corporations who are the employers. The trouble is when do we get past the first instance? Recently the formation of a joint industrial council for the aviation industry was announced. The Aeronautical Engineers Association applied through the Ministry for membership. They received an answer, not from the Ministry of Labour, but from the National Union of General and Municipal Workers to the effect that all grades represented by the Aeronautical Engineers Association, were covered within the trade unions having agreements with the airways corporations. Actually, neither of the two corporations has any such agreement, to the best of my knowledge.
How long are the Government going to continue this farce? The Minister is in daily contact with the civil aviation corporations. The corporations are financed by public money. Are the Government really going to allow, not to say oblige, public corporations to permit injustices by refusing to recognise an organisation which represents the majority of the workers in certain principal grades of the aviation industry? That is not a question of day-to-day management, but of principle and of the national interest. Just in case the Minister should attempt to hide behind Section 19 of the Act let me remind him what the Lord Privy Seal said during the Debate on that Section:
I have no doubt that the hon. and gallant Member for Central Glasgow would be one of the earliest to put down a question and the matter would be ventilated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee B, 19th June, 19th;—35]
That, in my view, is a clear undertaking that the Government will not wash their hands of this matter. At last it has been ventilated, and I call on the Government to attend to the matter. I hope to hear from the Minister when he replies that he will exercise his influence and

his powers, so as to ensure the position of the Aeronautical Engineers' Association. This Association is not a breakaway union; it is not mainly composed of dilutees but has a far larger proportion of ex-R.A.F. men and has more members in the grades it covers than all the unions affiliated to the T.U.C. put together. I hope the Minister will give this union fair play.

10.23 P.m.

Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: Though I can add little to the clear exposition of this case by my hon. Friend, there are one or two points which I should like to add. By a coincidence, this case has been considered and has been in the forefront of our deliberations today. There is nothing that I have heard during the course of the Debate on the closed shop that has in any way altered my mind that here is being perpetrated a transparent injustice amounting almost to persecution. We heard words used by hon. Members opposite during the course of a Debate this afternoon�ž�ž

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): The hon. and gallant Gentleman is not in Order in referring to a previous Debate today.

Colonel Hutchison: I beg pardon. I will keep my remarks exclusively to the Aeronautical Engineers' Association, but it was one of the subjects which was closely examined this afternoon. This is the same identical union—�ž

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. and gallant Member is not only occupying much of his time on this point, but he is also getting out of Order again.

Colonel Hutchison: I will keep close to the Aeronautical Engineers' Association. By any standards that we apply to the claims of this union it has a right to be recognised. As my hon. Friend has already emphasised, this is not a breakaway union. You cannot break away from nothing. It is not a splinter union, because you must have a parent body from which to splinter away. It has, in fact, proved its membership in two ways. It has proved it by showing the grand total of its adherents, and it has proved it by a strike. We have heard it said that men do not strike lightly, or on a subject about which they do not feel deeply, and to that view I completely subscribe, and so we


have, by these two yardsticks, evidence that this association, this union, in fact controls the bulk of the members for whom it caters, whereas there are competing for the minority that are left some six to ten other unions affiliated to or connected with the T.U.C. We have also heard it said that the greatest good for the greatest number must be the measure and policy to guide us in a matter of this kind. Then let it apply in this case, because undoubtedly the Aeronautical Engineers' Association does represent the greatest number.
When this matter was being debated at the time of the Committee stage of the Civil Aviation Act, the Lord Privy Seal, referring to some protests that I had made, said that this House was the proper place to ventilate this matter, but we have heard the Minister of Labour say that in fact the Government have no control over this situation. Ministers surely must make up their minds. They have only to read the Civil Aviation Act, to discover that throughout the Minister of Civil Aviation has the widest possible powers over the whole situation. To disclaim any authority or any power merely means that that power is being handed over to some other body, which itself is dominating the Ministry and the Government. That other body must be none other than the T.U.C. If this is to be an example of what we may expect in the future for nationalised and other industries, if in fact the Government allow themselves to be used as a channel for pressure to be brought to bear in a matter of this kind, then I say that they are conniving, first at a tyranny, because it is irresistible pressure which can be brought to bear in this way upon men; they are conniving, second, at a monopoly, because the caucus will allow of no competition; and, finally, they will be lending their hand to a negation of democracy, because the caucus which will dominate the Government has not been elected by public suffrage. Are the Socialist Government going to allow themselves to fall into such low depths? If they are not, they will find ways and means to see that the justice which is the only thing I am interested in in this matter—I have no connection whatever with any of these unions—will be done to these men, who have been clamouring for it for so long.

10.29 P.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Lindgren): May I first thank the hon. Member who opened the Debate for the manner in which he raised his point? I am sorry I cannot extend the same congratulations to the second speaker this evening. When one has a dispute between two parties, words or actions by persons who are not directly associated with the dispute, very often widen the breach, and it is much better for the general "bringing-together" of the parties that as little be said as possible of an inflammatory nature. Therefore, I do not propose this evening, in spite of a little temptation, to go into the statements or inferences which have been made by one side or the other, but rather to deal with general principles.
What are these general principles? First, the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Macpherson) quite rightly referred to Section 19 of the Civil Aviation Act. That Section places a responsibility upon each of the corporations for a decision as to which staff organisation they will negotiate with and what machinery and method of negotiation will be adopted. My noble Friend takes the view—and in this, with a considerable amount of industrial experience, I am in full sympathy and full support—that this is a question of management, of relationships between employer and employed, and that in questions of industrial relationship Ministers should interfere as little as possible There is, in industry, a generally recognised method of procedure for such matters, and it is far better that inside an industry, these tried and trusted methods of machinery should be used with the least possible interference from any outside organisation or body. The corporations themselves have recognised their responsibilities with regard to these negotiations. They have in fact said "We are common employers in the common field of civil aviation. Therefore we are prepared to have a common form of machinery, to deal with wages, conditions of employment and so forth inside that industry."
Therefore, in common agreement with the Ministry of Labour and with the assistance of the Ministry, they have set up a national organisation for dealing with problems relating to wages, staff and conditions within their own industry. One section of the joint industrial council


constitution allows of the addition of membership to the industrial council. The Aeronautical Engineers' Association have applied for membership of that council. I am quite certain that it was not the intention of the hon. Member for Dumfries to mislead the House in any way, but he did refer to the fact that an application had been made and that a reply had been received from the secretary of the Municipal and General Workers Union. He may find in the first place that that letter is written on the notepaper of the Municipal and General Workers Union, but in these joint industrial councils, you have an employers side with an employers secretary, and an employees side with an employees secretary. What the Association has received is an acknowledgment, from the employees' secretary of the joint industrial council, that the application has been received and will be dealt with. That is how I see it, and if I have done an injustice to the hon. Member, I will immediately withdraw, but I did gather from his remarks that he thought that the Municipal and General Workers' Union were controlling the conditions of employment within that industry. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It is clear that hon. Members opposite, whose knowledge of industrial subjects is not extremely large—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"]—I can only infer it from their remarks—are not aware that it is usual in dealing with joint industrial councils, for the secretary of the employees side of that council to reply on the notepaper of the organisation with which he is associated.

Mr. Macpherson: The information I have is to the effect that the A.E.A. were told that they were already catered for within the trade unions concerned, and that these did not include the A.E.A.

Mr. Lindgren: That is a statement of fact, but it does not take away from the responsibility of secretaries of the joint industrial councils for replying to letters which they have received as secretaries, and for replying on their own organisation's notepaper to the other organisation concerned.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd (Mid-Bedford): If a letter is written to a Minister, is not the correspondent entitled to receive a reply from the Minister?

Mr. Lindgren: Again, dealing with correspondence between Members of the House of Commons and a Ministry is slightly different from dealing with correspondence in trade, industry and commerce and between one union and another. A joint industrial council is something different from a Government Department.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Really, I cannot let the hon. Gentleman get away with that. I was for many years at the Ministry of Labour. I received a large number of letters dealing with all sorts of such matters. I did not pass them on to trade union officials to answer. I answered them on behalf of the Ministry, or saw that the Minister answered them. I did not pass them on to one of the new vested interests controlling our affairs to answer for me.

Mr. Lindgren: Again, as the hon. Gentleman has not been as polite as he might have been, may I say that if he had any knowledge of joint industrial council working he would not have made the statement which he has just made? A joint industrial council is made up of representatives of various organisations. The secretary of that council receives a letter and acknowledges it and deals with it. That letter will be submitted to the joint industrial council by the secretaries of the council and a reply will be received from the council. My noble Friend the Minister of Civil Aviation and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour are very gratified indeed that the two sides of the civil aviation industry have got together in a joint industrial council. They have got together on the basis that if there is a dispute in the joint industrial council it shall be submitted to arbitration. I do suggest to this House, with the greatest respect, that when one is dealing with the relationships in industry between employer and employee it is far better to deal with them on the basis of normal industrial practices than to deal with them on the basis of discussions within this House. If this House leaves the matter with the organisations concerned, then I am certain that they will settle them within the industry without any interference from this House, or from the Minister. I am certain, too, that that is, on a general basis, the desire of this House. After all, the inference from the benches opposite, in particular, has always been that there


should not be interference with industry if industry can peacefully settle the problems with which it has to deal.

Colonel Hutchison: Before the hon. Member sits down, will he say whether he means that there is an arbitration tribunal, or a court of appeal to which this matter can be brought?

Mr. Lindgren: There is, first, a joint industrial council. When the matter is considered by the joint industrial council, every application for membership which is submitted is considered. If the other side agree and there is general agreement in the council, then the new member is admitted. If there is no agreement, or there is objection from one side or the other, then the applicant is not admitted.

10.39 P.m.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: That is a very interesting confession. I am not allowed to delay the House very much at this time, but I would like to protect my hon. and

gallant Friend the Member for Central Glasgow (Colonel Hutchison) against the suggestion that he made inflammatory remarks or did inflammatory things. He did his best to call off a strike in the interests of the aircraft industry. He succeeded, just as the hon. Lady the Member for the Exchange Division (Mrs. Braddock) did in the Liverpool area. There is one question I would like to ask, and I hope to have an answer. Was any effort made by the Government to persuade these corporations not to recognise this union? Can the Parliamentary Secretary give a solemn assurance that no effort of that kind was made?

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the Debate having been continued for half an hour,Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Order made upon 13th November.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty Minutes to Eleven o' Clock.